EUTYCHUS 

AND HIS RELATIONS 




BROOKE HERFORD 




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EUTYCHUS 

AND HIS RELATIONS 

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BY 

BROOKE HERFORL 



BOSTON 
AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION 

190S 



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PREFACE. 

The ' Pulpit and Pew ' Papers in this little book 
were written and published anonymously, during the 
years i860 and 1861 by the late Dr. Brooke Herford 
in the early years of his ministry. 

In the Biographical sketch of Dr. Herford by the Rev. 
P. H. Wicksteed, M.A., which forms an Introduction 
to the volume of sermons, ' Anchors of the Soul/ it 
is stated that the ' Eutychus ' papers ' made some little 
stir and roused considerable curiosity in their day, 
and will repay perusal still. There is a strange per- 
sistence in the minor weaknesses of humanity.' 

London, February, 1905. 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 

' I. A ' LAY ' VIEW OF SLEEPING IN CHURCH . . 9 

' II SOME PEOPLE WHO ALWAYS COME LATE . . 1 8 

III. PRAISING GOD BY PROXY . . . . . . 28 

' IV. PEWS . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 

4 V. A COUNTRY TEA PARTY . . . . . . 52 

• VI. A RATHER FASTIDIOUS CONGREGATION . . 63 

VII. SOME CANDIDATES FOR A CONGREGATION . . 72 

VIII. OVERMUCH DISCOURSE. . .. .. ..87 

- IX. A SHOCKING CASE OF ABDUCTION . . 96 

* X. UNSOCIAL WORSHIP . . . . . . . . IO3 

4 XI. ' PARSONIC ACID' . . . . . . . . . . I IO 



A ' LAY ' VIEW OF SLEEPING 
IN CHURCH. 

For my part I pity Eutychus. He has 
been held up as a warning to sleepy congrega- 
tions, and his falling down set forth as a 
judgment, by grave old divines of the precise 
Puritanical school, who could not appreciate 
the difficulty of keeping the attention fixed 
through long sermons, especially such ser- 
mons as their own. The clerical mind has 
a curious faculty of exaggerating small 
ecclesiastical offences, and while on most 
subjects entertaining very enlarged views 
and charitable feelings, has no sympathy 
with the little difficulties of the laity in these 
matters. I wish, therefore, to present a lay 
view of the subject. 

It has a strange attraction for me. I have 
read those few verses in the twentieth chapter 
of Acts, again and again, and I love to touch 



A ' LAY ' VIEW OF 

and retouch the quaint little picture of the 
early church which they have left upon my 
mind. I seem to sit among the eager people 
grouped together in that little upper-room 
at Troas. Paul is on his way to Jerusalem, 
and the foreboding is strong upon his spirit 
that he shall never see them again. We do 
not know what he said, — Luke had taken 
ship and gone on before to Assos, so he was 
not there to tell us — but there are no more 
touching words in all the Acts than his 
farewell to the elders of Ephesus, given at 
the end of the same chapter ; and it would 
be in much the same strain that he would 
speak to these poor folk at Troas, that last 
Sabbath-night of his brief stay. Have you 
never seen a crowded little preaching-room, 
away in some back street or country place, — 
a small, low room over a couple of cottages, 
with many lights stuck here and there against 
the walls, and homely long-headed weavers 
and poor women eagerly crowding to hear, 
and children sleeping heavily in the close 
hot air, and many faces peering in at the door. 
I think of such sights which I have seen 
many a time among the Methodists, when I 
was a young man, as often as I read of 

10 



SLEEPING IN CHURCH 

Eutychus. Poor young man, who has not 
seen him sitting, c fallen in a deep sleep.' 
I dare say he was as fond of Paul as any of 
them, and listened lovingly at first. But 
' Paul was long preaching,' and - continued 
his speech until midnight ' ; and so at last, 
what with the heat, and the lights, and some 
of the apostle's longer points about the 
Judaizing teachers and the dead works of 
the law, gradually the words began to melt 
into a pleasant dreamy flow of sound, and 
his head bowed down in that ' deep sleep.' 

What a break in the midst of his touching 
words, when at last poor Eutychus over- 
balanced as he sat on the window-ledge, 
and suddenly his feet flew up and he dis- 
appeared with a heavy fall ! How the people 
would rush out with lights and crowd about 
him, till Paul came down and knelt bending 
over him, with such a deep, longing prayer 
that he might be spared, and soon could say, 
to the great joy of the wondering friends, 
- Trouble not yourselves, for his life is in him.' 

What a lesson for poor Eutychus ! I 
don't think he would go to sleep in chapel 
again for a long time, and when he did, he 
would take care not to sit in a window ! 

ii 



A - LAY " VIEW OF 

It would have been well, indeed, if he 
had impressed more care on that head upon 
his relations and descendants. History 
affords some remarkable illustrations of the 
hereditary descent of family peculiarities. 
It is said that slave-hunters could detect 
the slightest taint of ' colour ' by looking 
at the thumb-nail of suspected persons who 
to all appearance were of pure European 
blood. So indications, more or less marked, 
of descent from Eutychus have been from time 
to time discovered in some modern families. 
And it were to be wished that their respect- 
able ancestor had cautioned his descendants 
to be careful to choose places where, if the 
family-failing should overtake them, they 
will neither injure themselves nor incon- 
venience others, nor cause scandal to the 
minds of weak brethren. 

Of themselves, perhaps, they are sufficiently 
careful. They do not sit in windows, — 
perhaps because these are inconveniently 
built now-a-days ; but how often, in such 
little preaching-rooms as I have mentioned, 
have I seen a man, evidently lineally des- 
cended from Eutychus, after vainly trying 
to sit upright in the middle of a narrow form 

12 



SLEEPING IN CHURCH 

without a back, yielding to deep sleep and 
falling clumsily over a neighbour, who with- 
out ever abstracting his own reverential gaze 
from the preacher, holds up the sleeper with 
good-natured forbearance. 

Some people go to sleep in church on system. 
This I cannot justify. I am myself descended 
from Eutychus by a collateral branch on the 
mother's side, but I feel that the family- 
tendency ought to be resisted as far as 
possible, therefore I cannot countenance 
deliberate indulgence in it. Still there was 
a certain dignity about the old man whom 
the venerable Dr. Williams, tutor of a well- 
known theological academy, had among his 
congregation. The Doctor remarked that his 
old friend, as regularly as Sunday came, 
went to sleep under him in a very steady 
and systematic way ; and he did not object 
to this till his friends remarked that when- 
ever the Doctor was absent, and one of the 
students preached, the old man sat bolt 
upright, never missing a word. Dr. Williams 
gently remonstrated. ' Well, Doctor,' said 
the old man, ' it's just here, — when I sees 
you i'th pulpit I know it's all right, and that 
the doctrines '11 come out just like Scriptur, 

13 



A ' LAY ' VIEW OF 

an' I turns me round and goes to sleep easy. 
But when they lads is agate I feels it my duty 
to keep an eye on 'em — for you never know 
what they young 'uns is up to ! ' There was 
a certain loyalty to his old pastor which no 
one could resist in that answer, albeit it 
reminds one of the complaint made by a 
rural congregation, whose habits, formed 
for many years under a mild divine of the 
old school, were disturbed by an energetic 
young preacher who succeeded him. ' Why, 
when th'oud man were alive, we all went to 
sleep of a Sunday afternoon, an' got a nice 
rest ready for mllkin' ; but as for this new- 
fangled chap, drat 'un ! what wi' talking 
loud and bobbin' his arms about, I can never 
tak' my eyes off 'un, and haven't had a 
comfortable nap sin' last fair.' 

What a curious sensation it is, that of 
gradually falling off to sleep ! I take it 
for granted you try to keep awake, perhaps 
you are in a strange pew, or you know the 
preacher has his eye upon you, or there is 
nothing to lean against, and you would be 
likely to start up in waking. How you screw 
up your mind, and look fixedly at the pulpit, 
with a desperate effort to make head or tail 

14 



SLEEPING IN CHURCH 

of the words which seem to dribble into 
your mind and dribble out again. You feel 
your eyelid begin to fall, just a little. No ! 
you won't ; and you shake your head and 
try again. And you succeed ; yes, you feel 
you are taking in every word, there is no 
doubt about it ; and soon, while you are 
assuring yourself of this, the voice has 
changed, the subject has run off at a tangent 
from that profound argument about the 
Epistle to the Romans, and has changed 
into an interesting description of a gorilla ; 
and yet it seems all right and connected ; 
you have no longer any feeling of being 
sleepy, and — and suddenly you start and find 
you must have been asleep, for the preacher 
is still hammering out his little explanation, 
and your neighbour is gazing reproachfully at 
you, with that self-righteous look which is so 
repulsive a characteristic of wakeful persons. 
Therefore, now and then, on a hot day, 
bear with the sleepers : nay, even pity them, 
and remember all the pangs and qualms 
they suffer ; but that is all. I cannot tolerate 
your regular sleepers, — your men who will 
sleep, and who look black and vicious when 
you, quite by accident, give them a gentle 

15 



A ' LAY ' VIEW OF 

nudge with your foot. The curate of Little- 
boro's plan was the way to serve people of 
that kind. He — I don't know which curate 
it was — found his people sleeping Sunday 
by Sunday. He tried every plan he could 
think of to make the services more interesting, 
but without success. So one hot summer's 
afternoon, just as the people roused them- 
selves at the end of the sermon, he said 
very quietly, c Well, my friends, that sermon 
doesn't seem to have interested you ; I am 
very sorry for it ; but there is a remedy for 
all things, and I have . another in my pocket 
which you will perhaps like better ! ' and 
to the dismay of the people he proceeded to 
begin again, and preached another sermon 
steadily through to a more wakeful audience 
than he had seen for many a week ! 

There is one class of persons whom I 
always like to see asleep in church. I mean 
very little children. I think they grow up 
to like the place of worship better if they 
are allowed to go quietly off to sleep during 
the sermon. I like to take my little ones 
to chapel, and see the sense of reverence 
dawning on their young minds. When the 
psalms are sung, and during the prayers, 

16 



SLEEPING IN CHURCH 

I would have them wakeful, for it is then 
that they insensibly catch something of the 
awe of the sacred presence, as they listen 
to those simple words, ' our Father,' and 
wonder who is spoken to. And I would 
have them attend as the Scriptures are read, 
for these words cannot too soon become 
familiar to their minds. But when the 
sermon comes — as they begin to be tired — 
I coax them to lie down on the seat, and I 
take off my little daughter's hat and lay 
her head gently on my knee, while my lad 
leans up against my shoulder, and they 
sink off into such sweet, calm, innocent 
slumbers as it does my heart good to see. 
I seem to listen better then myself ; and 
as I watch the little heaving breast and 
stroke the golden curls, I think of Christ 
and the children, and I feel how ' of such 
is the kingdom of Heaven.' It makes me 
charitable to feel that little head resting 
there — charitable to all men and to all creeds,, 
and hopeful too ; and often, if the sermon be 
but a dull one, the little angel-face lying 
there so lovingly and trustingly, calls many 
a text to mind and preaches to me of hope 
and trust, and ' resting in the Lord.' 

17 B 



II. 



SOME PEOPLE WHO ALWAYS COME 
LATE. 

It is a curious faculty some people have 
of always coming late to chapel. Anyone 
can be late occasionally with a little effort, 
but there are some persons who seem gifted 
with a heaven-born unpunctuality, and who 
invariably rise superior to little arrangements 
as to time. I know them ! My pew is 
fortunately placed just at a point where, 
as I sit in the side corner, I can take in the 
whole chapel with my left eye, and I can 
see a good deal of what goes on in a quiet 
way. Bless you, do you think I don't see 
when young Moppett is down from London 
and comes to chapel on a Sunday evening 
with Miss Spoker, and they sit together in 
the high pew under the gallery, holding 
hands all the service! Our parson can't 
see it ; poor man, he was remarking 

18 



PEOPLE WHO COME LATE 

the other day that c young Mr. Moppett 
really seemed taking quite a religious turn/ 
and that he thought he would have a good 
influence on the Spokers, who entre nous 
are rather flighty Christians. 

Yes, and do you think I don't see young 
Sparks telegraphing slyly to his friend up 
in the gallery ? Oh I can assure you, I see 
a good deal, and among others I have my 
eye on the late-comers. 

Those are not the regular late-comers, 
who rush in hot and breathless while the 
introductory chant is being sung : those 
are punctual people who have got accidentally 
delayed, and who have hurried and done 
their best to be in time. These are the 
people who look down half-ashamed as they 
come in, and huddle into their pews as if 
forty generations were looking down upon 
them from the gallery, and have their books 
open in a moment and begin reading des- 
perately as if trying to overtake the parson, 
and make the responses with expiatory 
eagerness. One has some comfort in these 
people coming late, you know they are 
ashamed of it, and that for six weeks to come 
they will be in before even the voluntary 

19 



SOME PEOPLE WHO 

has begun ! But your regular late-comers 
do things in a very different way. They only 
begin to drop in when the service is fairly 
under weigh : during the Old Testament 
there is quite a running fire of them, and they 
keep coming in, little knots of twos and ones 
all through the chanting and the lessons, 
with one incorrigible straggler in the hymn 
before the sermon. 

And they aren't put out or in any 
way ashamed. Not they. There is a sober 
dignity about your regular late-comers which 
contrasts most favourably with the un- 
comfortable self-consciousness of people who 
only occasionally come late, and who have 
never thoroughly endeavoured to make a 
practice of it. There is Griggs the lawyer 
now ; his regular time is during the first 
lesson, if anything, a little towards the end 
of it. He doesn't hurry in, but walks calmly 
and sedately up the aisle, looking blandly 
at the minister and the people around, and 
stands with his pew-door open while his 
wife and two daughters and the governess 
sail in, in all the majestic panoply of the 
period. That man was born for a noble 
station ! Watch him as he sits down and 

20 



ALWAYS COME LATE 

looks calmly about him as he gathers up 
his Prayer-book and slowly settles the heavy 
double eye-glass on his nose — by-the-way, 
what dignity a double eye-glass gives to the 
face — and gradually bends his thoughts to 
the service. I wonder what would be the 
effect on Griggs if our parson were to stop 
in the lesson some Sunday, and after waiting 
till our friend and his family had settled 
themselves down, were to say as did a very 
bland minister of my acquaintance under 
similar circumstances, with a courtly inclina- 
tion of the head towards the delinquent's 
pew : ' The lesson we are reading is in the 
twentieth chapter of Acts. 5 I do not think, 
however, it would make any impression, 
except that Griggs would bottle up his wrath 
till he got home and then indulge himself in 
a few strong remarks on the nature of parsons 
in general, and perhaps would not come at 
all for six weeks afterwards. There is a 
certain moral courage in the Griggs family, 
because they have to walk up the whole 
length of the centre aisle to the corner pew 
in the transept, in face of the congregation ; 
but I cannot accord the same meed of com- 
mendation to the two young Walkers, be- 

21 



SOME PEOPLE WHO 

cause they take a mean advantage of their 
pew being next to the door, and sneak in 
sometimes as late as the prayer for the 
c Queen,' or the 'High Court of Parliament 
now sitting.' So quiet, they are ! They 
know every movement of the latch, and how 
to hold the door a little back upon its hinges 
to prevent it creaking, and even those in the 
next pew can hardly hear a sound, — but it 
is not right. Besides, they have no excuse. 
They have a holiday any Saturday afternoon, 
and have not to keep hard at it till twelve 
o'clock at night (and later still sometimes I 
am afraid) like little Biggs the grocer, who 
may well be excused for coming in a little 
late with those four small children. Poor 
Biggs ! You can read his history as he 
comes in ! He said to his wife last night 
that ' raylly he would be in time to-morrow, 
for he was fair ashamed — goin' in when the 
readin' was on, an' makin' sich a racket.' 
But he overslept himself again, and ever 
since breakfast his poor careworn wife, who 
never comes herself except in the evening, 
has been getting those children up in wonder- 
ful Sunday frocks and tippets, and hats of 
awful splendour, and the little man has had 

22 



ALWAYS COME LATE 

to wait, bearing his impatience meekly, for 
he dare not distract that anxious mother's 
attention ; and as for getting himself ready, 
why he couldn't do it for a thousand pounds. 
He couldn't get into that uncomfortable 
collar or pin it into stable equilibrium, and 
as to arranging that blue check satin tie, 
it's out of the question. No, he had to wait 
till the children were finished, and his turn 
came, and so he got late again, and came 
in hot and flurried, tripping up an umbrella 
in the gallery, and knocking a hymn book 
on to the floor in his perturbation — and it 
will be so to the end of the chapter. 

But, why should the Robinsons always 
be ten minutes after time ? I know theirs 
is a well-ordered household ; I know their 
mother is a busy managing woman ; I know 
the father has the greatest respect for the 
minister, and is a sincere Christian ; and 
yet, I do not think I ever saw them in their 
pew in proper time, these ten years. I can 
only account for it in one way. The fact is, 
they live only two hundred yards from the 
chapel! That is a fatal difficulty. I never 
expect to find anyone punctual at worship, 
who lives nearer than half-a-mile. 

23 



SOME PEOPLE WHO 

But why, in the name of all the punctu- 
alities, should our minister's wife always 
come in just after the service is begun ? 
She is never much late, and she is, I need not 
say, a most estimable woman ; but, just 
about the middle or end of the first chant, 
she comes in with those two big boys of hers, 
and, I can just catch her husband looking 
at her with a very slight expression as who 
should say, ' Dear me, there's my wife late 
again ! ' And she is a strong-minded woman, 
too. So that, standing in a sort of semi- 
official position, and naturally expected to 
be an ' example to believers,' I do think she 
might be more careful. 

I have sometimes pondered on the best 
remedy for this unpunctual tendency. Some 
ministers make a dead pause and look black, 
but I think this is apt to make everybody 
uncomfortable, except the persons aimed at, 
who are generally far too flurried to be 
conscious of anything except of a general 
concentration of many eyes upon them, and 
who will look anywhere except at the pulpit. 
Ministers have sometimes been known to 
pause and address the late-comers with con- 
siderable effect. If any minister be inclined 

24 



ALWAYS COME LATE 

to try this plan, he must be careful to avoid 
falling into the error which was committed 
by the late Dr. Green, of Glasgow. This 
respectable pastor of the Free Kirk, a rather 
pompous divine, and a strict disciplinarian, 
was called to a new church, just in the first 
blush of his rising fame, and entered upon his 
new settlement with no previous personal 
acquaintance with the people. Determined 
to take a firm stand against all irregularities 
at the opening service, he looked with severe 
reprobation on every one who entered after 
time. At last two gentlemen came in to- 
gether, very late indeed, when the worthy 
Doctor, unable to stand it any longer, paused 
in the service, and administered a personal 
remonstrance (they do those kind of things 
in Scotland), with a few other general remarks 
bearing on the subject of punctuality at wor- 
ship. To his great surprise, a general titter 
passed through the congregation. But, what 
must have been the Doctor's feelings when 
the chapel-keeper informed him, as he helped 
him off with the gown, in the vestry, that 
the two friends whom he had selected for 
his shocking example, were two of the deacons 
whose turn it had been, according to the 

25 



SOME PEOPLE WHO 

good old custom of the north, to stand with 
the boxes at the church-entrance, till the last 
comers should have contributed their mite ! 
But, why should all this lateness be ? 
People can be in time for other things ; why 
not for this best thing of all ? I know that 
Griggs will say things quite unworthy of that 
double eye-glass if his dinner be ten minutes 
late. Those young Walkers will be in half- 
an-hour before the time at a concert. Biggs 
might as well shut up his shop at ten on 
Saturday, and get a good night's sleep, and 
have some pleasure in his day of rest, as keep 
it open for a few straggling customers, not 
because it pays him, but, just because the 
grocer opposite, who cares nothing for Sun- 
day, will not join in an early-closing move- 
ment ! And, as for the Robinsons, they 
never are late anywhere except for chapel. 
I do think such people cannot know the 
happiness there is in being in one's place 
at chapel a few minutes before the time. I 
like to walk quietly down from my house 
upon the Sunday, enjoying the peaceful 
Sunday-look of all things. I like to have 
time to pause upon the bridge, and gaze for 
a moment on the pretty gleam of country, 

26 



ALWAYS COME LATE 

which one sees between the houses, just before 
we enter the town. I like to watch the little 
children as they troop along in such prim 
consciousness of an unusual responsibility 
for their clean Sunday dresses. Bless them, 
it will do them no harm. There is a civilising 
influence in Sunday clothes ; and all those 
decent men and women — smart too, some 
of them, to the scandal of my wife — they are 
the better for being dressed so nicely ; and I 
like to see them, and I feel that they are all a 
part of the happiness of the day. And then, 
as I enter the chapel-yard, I like to stand a 
moment in the sunshine and feel a swelling 
of the heart in gratitude for the day that 
is so restful and so lovely in its calm. Then, 
entering with my little girl holding by my 
hand, it is a blessed thing to sit back quietly 
in my corner of the pew, and have my own 
little moment of worship ere the organ begins. 
Perhaps I may not put my head into my hat, 
or kneel ; yet, as I sit there quietly, I some- 
times think that, in the quiet of that five 
minutes' space, I feel a deeper spirit of wor- 
ship than in all the set prayers and singing 
of the service afterwards. 



27 



III. 

PRAISING GOD BY PROXY. 

Wandering lately, during a fortnight's 
holiday from business, through the pleasant 
rural scenery of Cheshire, I came on the Sun- 
day to a homely little chapel in the heart of 
the country. A quaint brick edifice, built 
some hundred and fifty years ago by the 
piety of a few neighbouring Presbyterian 
yeomen, so plain as almost to be mistaken 
for a barn, were it not for the little belfry 
which asserts the dignity of a chapel, there 
is something attractive in its very simplicity 
— so in keeping with the old-fashioned dwell- 
ings of the neighbouring hamlet, and with 
the small rustic congregation of farmers 
and labouring men who gather from all the 
country round upon the Sunday afternoon. 
Entering at the beckoning of the old gray- 
haired sexton, I took my seat among some 
of the labouring people by the door, instead 

28 



PRAISING GOD BY PROXY 

of following him to the great pew in the corner, 
which, with its mildewed baize and solitary 
state, was far less inviting than the plain oak 
boards where the common people worshipped. 
I am not going to describe all the service : 
it is the psalmody which always attracts 
my notice more than anything else, and it 
was the psalmody which fixed that day in 
my memory. In a gallery at the end of the 
chapel sat some twenty Sunday scholars, 
and just before them a young girl and an 
old man with a great venerable fiddle. The 
fiddle is a cherished institution in our country 
chapels. Woe to that minister who ventures 
to criticise its performances, or to suggest 
the adoption of some more congenial instru- 
ment ! I have known more than one minister 
whose whole relations to his people were 
embittered by the indiscreet suggestion to 
introduce a harmonium. 

It was the old story : the hymn was given 
out, and after striking the chord, the old 
fiddler and the girl struck up together. It 
was a tune I had never heard — a fearful tune, 
full of strange twists and repetitions — a tune 
that seemed as if it would never come to 
an end. By the tattered music-book, towards 

29 



PRAISING GOD BY PROXY 

which the old man's massive spectacles were 
turned, it must have been a tune that all the 
congregation had known from childhood, but 
no one joined in. The Sunday scholars had 
no hymn books, and were chiefly occupied 
m pinching one another. The congregation 
stood mostly with open mouths, but it was 
only their habitual state, not a note proceeded 
from any of them. The only variation in that 
dreary and monotonous performance was in 
the second hymn. Here the tune was more 
complicated still, and the girl, with her weak, 
thin, treble voice, went wrong ; whereupon 
the old man, who evidently had as much as 
he could do to keep right without the distract- 
ing influence of some one close by him going 
wrong, broke in upon the performance with 
a loud ' stage aside,' which was well heard all 
over the place — ' Sit thee down ! ' and when 
the poor girl made one more fruitless attempt 
to get into the tune — ' Sit thee down, I say ; 
I conno' fiddle to thee ! ' 

Walking away afterwards through the 
little hamlet, I passed the Methodist Chapel, 
and heard proceeding from its open windows 
a full chorus of voices singing a good old- 
fashioned hymn. It was a pleasant contrast 

30 



PRAISING GOD BY PROXY 

to hear the many voices together, for albeit 
they were rough and sung with country 
accent, they seemed to join in heartily. 

Go with me to one of our chapels in a 
neighbouring city, a beautiful church rather, 
where everything is arranged to gratify the 
most fastidious taste, and no money is spared 
to bring all the higher influences of art 
to strengthen and elevate the emotions of 
the hour of worship. A great congregation 
of well-dressed, well-educated people gather 
here ; no open-mouthed rustics gazing with 
wondering admiration at an old fiddler 
spelling out his notes not always success- 
fully, but people of whom many have culti- 
vated musical tastes. One would expect to find 
here a people able to praise God together, 
singing with spirit as well as with under- 
standing. But no ! They praise God by 
proxy. There is a magnificent organ, and 
some half-dozen professional singers, and 
these ' perform the psalmody ! ' It is often 
very beautiful, but no one joins, or only a 
few, and those often the least able to join 
in with effect. As a performance for an 
audience to listen to, it is quite correct and 
in good taste. As the praise and thanks- 

31 



PRAISING GOD BY PROXY 

giving of a people meeting together to worship 
God, it is poor, tame, and spiritless. Fancy 
six voices in an organ-gallery piping out — 

« We'll crowd thy gates with thankful songs.' 

Those respectable Christians paying their 
hundred a year for these musical services 
would very likely be scandalised at the com- 
parison, but I think theirs is really a more 
ridiculous spectacle than the old villager 
with his c Sit thee down, I conno' fiddle to 
thee ! ' 

Why is it that this lifelessness pervades 
our psalmody ? There is no necessity for it. 
I went one evening a while since to a large 
Independent Chapel. There were perhaps 
fifteen hundred people present. There was 
a tolerably fine organ, but not one singer. 
The organ led off a good old psalm tune 
(the three that evening were ' Fenwick,' the 
' Old Hundredth, 5 and ' Sicilian Mariners '), 
and straightway there uprose such a strong, 
full swelling chorus of praise as made the 
walls ring again, and went echoing forth into 
all the neighbourhood round, warming the 
heart of many a one besides those who were 
gathered at the service itself. Now I am 
sure our congregations are not less able to 

32 



PRAISING GOD BY PROXY 

join in these old familiar hymn tunes, and 
I often ask myself why it is that the psalmody 
in our chapels is so very seldom really con- 
gregational. 

There is one advantage in it perhaps. 
Being done for the congregation instead of 
by them, it furnishes an outlet for an amazing 
amount of small grumbling. If I were asked 
to name the two things which, somehow or 
other, cause more grumbling, and bickering, 
and dissatisfaction, than anything else among 
our respectable chapel-goers, I should name 
the pews and the psalmody. It is astonishing 
how touchy people are about their pews : 
but that is a subject which must be deferred 
to another occasion. It is the psalmody 
that we are concerned with at present. 

When I first joined our chapel, the organ 
was played by an old man who had held it 
for more than twenty years. He had been 
reckoned a fine player in his youth, but 
fashions change in music as in other things, 
and a generation had arisen c who knew not 
Joseph ; ' and Joseph being a positive and 
self-opinionated old man, who hated what 
he called ' new-fangled rubbish,' there was 
a chronic state of hostility between the organ 

33 c 



PRAISING GOD BY PROXY 

gallery and the pews. The congregation 
grumbled and said they were tired of hearing 
the same old tunes for ever ; c and as for his 
voluntaries, there was no feeling or sentiment 
in them ; they were nothing but a lot of 
rattling old flourishes, not fit for a place of 
worship.' Joseph, on the other hand, de- 
clared the congregation did not know what 
music was ; and, moreover, 6 didn't know 
what they wanted. 5 At last this state 
of things came to a natural end. Joseph 
got tired of being worried, and, declaring 
that he was getting too old to be tied to the 
organ twice every Sunday, resigned ; where- 
upon the congregation— as is always done 
in those cases — got up a testimonial, and 
expressed the liveliest regret at his retirement. 
Our next venture — chosen after much 
heart-burning, for three different parties in 
the congregation had favourite candidates — 
was a very fine player indeed, a doctor of 
music, a man who shrugged his shoulders 
with a sublime contempt when the perfor- 
mances of old Joseph were alluded to ; who 
played only the very highest style of music, 
and had great ideas on the subject of alto- 
gether reforming our bare cold services. And 

34 



PRAISING GOD BY PROXY 

certainly he did play well, in fact too well ; and 
what with chromatic passages, and new tunes, 
and improved ways of playing the old tunes, 
he very soon had a hornet's-nest about his 
ears. Old Joseph was avenged, and now his 
good old tunes and the simple melodies on 
which he used to play grandiloquent varia- 
tions, were extolled, and poor Dr. B.'s life 
was made miserable by a constant succession 
of contradictory, and, as he considered, 
ignorant suggestions. To add to his troubles, 
there was war in his own camp. The leading 
Treble declared she couldn't sing to his 
playing ; the Bass— a man of stentorian 
power — persisted in singing on in his own 
way. The organist blamed the singers, and 
they made a party in the congregation ; 
and at last, one Sunday, they wouldn't sing 
at all. So the upshot of it was that, the 
organist resigning in a pet, and the singers 
being dismissed for insubordination, we were 
left to begin anew, with all the world before us. 
By what evil genius I was induced to step 
in at this conjuncture I know not. A good 
deal was said against paid choirs, and it was 
proposed to try and get up a volunteer 
choir among our young people. I was known 

35 



PRAISING GOD BY PROXY 

to take some interest in music, and having 
always held my peace and never taken sides 
in musical matters, was inconclusively sup- 
posed by both parties to have a good deal of 
taste, and w r as urgently requested to under- 
take the general management of the choir. 
I consented, and for three years, during which 
I have held that post, I think I have hardly 
known what peace of mind is. 

Two leading ideas possessed my mind ; 
the first was to make our psalmody as simple 
as possible ; the second to make it congrega- 
tional. Propounded in theory at one of our 
social meetings, these two principles were 
vehemently applauded, but no sooner did I 
attempt practically to carry them out than 
my troubles began. ' Really, my dear fellow,' 
my friend S. would say to me on a Sunday 
morning after service, c your choir do give 
us such humdrum tunes, they are enough 
to make one miserable for the week ; do let 
us have something more lively.' On which 
I try to explain the principle of it, but S. 
only rejoins, ' well, I don't profess to know 
anything about music, you know, but I 
know what I like.' Next Sunday I get them 
to give us a couple of light, simple airs, 

36 



PRAISING GOD BY PROXY 

that I had picked up in an American psalmody 
and that a child could catch at once. What 
is the result ? Why, my wife is pestered by 
half-a-dozen pious ladies the following week, 
all expressing how shocked they were at those 
dreadful things the choir gave last Sunday — 
4 they were more fit for a theatre ; my dear, 
do, pray, speak to your husband, because 
we know he has to do with all that.' Then 
L. comes to me, wants a great deal more music 
in the service ; chants and anthems. ' Music 
you know, Mr. Eutychus, is a great help to 
devotion ; ' and he tells me how his soul 
has been subdued on several occasions by 
his visits to Catholic churches, and thinks 
our bald services are the cause why our chapels 
are so thinly attended. In course of time 
we introduced a chant, and even went so 
far as an anthem ; when lo ! next week, 
old Mr. Biffin, whose family have sat in the 
chapel for a century, sends a letter to the 
secretary protesting against the introduction 
of such Popish practices, and threatening to 
give up his subscription, and withdraw from 
the chapel. 

But I could bear all this, if I had succeeded 
in my endeavour to make the singing con- 

37 



PRAISING GOD BY PROXY 

gregational. I do not like the idea of our 
praising God by proxy. I see around me 
in the chapel, every Sunday, many people 
who understand something of music ; young 
ladies whose fathers have been paying I 
don't know how much a lesson to music 
masters for years past ; young men who 
can roll out a song in company in a good 
stout bass ; and yet they all stand up with 
their hymn books in their hands, and never 
so much as sing a note. c Oh, Mr. Eutychus,' 
the young ladies say, when I speak to them 
about it, ' really we carCt sing ! • And then 
they tell me how one Sunday they did think 
they would try ; but when they began, it 
seemed as if nobody else was singing near 
them, and so they had been obliged to stop. 
We did indeed get a few of them to join the 
volunteer choir for a while, but it did not last 
long. Their parents objected to their coming 
out at night to the ' practice ' in the winter 
— though, by the way, they were very con- 
stant in their attendance at parties and 
balls. Then jealousies arose. Miss B. said 
Miss C. c put her out, 5 and Miss C. retorted 
that Miss B. systematically sung half a note 
flat. This, of course, ended in their both 

38 



PRAISING GOD BY PROXY 

withdrawing* Our Tenor would trouble the 
whole choir by retarding on his closing notes 
so as to get a little solo at the end to himself ; 
and the Alto took offence at hearing that 
some one had likened his voice to a ' kitten- 
falsetto.' At last we were reduced to the 
Bass and two little boys, and the voluntary 
principle was pronounced a failure, and so 
we are at a loose end once more ! 

Good heavens ! what are we to do ? 



39 



IV. 
PEWS. 

When our present handsome Gothic chapel 
was building, we used for about a year, to 
hold our meetings for worship in the neigh- 
bouring ' Masonic Hall. 5 There could not 
well be a stronger contrast than the circum- 
stances in which we then found ourselves 
presented to the state in which we had 
previously subsisted. Our old chapel 
was a model of that peculiar architecture, 
or want of architecture, which was so 
dear to the souls of our Presbyterian fore- 
fathers. Those who have worshipped in it 
before it was destroyed by that unfortunate 
fire which everyone will recollect, can never 
forget its old brick walls blackened by time 
and smoke ; its antiquated tablets, sacred 
to the memory of departed ministers ; its 
deep cuttings among the pews, which stood 
for aisles ; and most of all, the pews them 

40 



PEWS 

selves. The separate system of worship was 
in full force there. It is indeed said, that 
the system now adopted in prison chapels 
for the complete isolation of the several 
convicts, was suggested by a chaplain, a per- 
vert from our faith, who had gained the idea 
from an early familiarity with Presbyterian 
meeting-houses. He might well have gained 
it in our old chapel. Deep, dark, and lined 
with dingy baize, the pews well deserved 
the name of c sleepy hollows,' which was 
given them among a transcendental party 
in the congregation who desired their removal. 
Who can adequately describe those high 
backs, which in our childhood seemed to 
bound the ecclesiastical horizon, and made 
general observation impossible, except during 
the hymns, when we were considerately put 
to stand on the seats. And those narrow 
seats, with cushions that always perversely 
sloped the wrong way, and off which we were 
only prevented from slipping by buttresses of 
big venerable buffets ! Dear old pews ! what 
games we children used to have in you on 
Sunday afternoons, when we were sent to 
chapel by ourselves, or with one not very 
staid domestic, what time Eutychus senior 

41 



PEWS 

dozed at home in an arm-chair with his 
handkerchief over his face. What surprising 
architectural effects we used to produce with 
the hymn books and Bibles ! And what naps 
our elders used to have in those dark corners, 
while a quiet, pleasant stream of kind and 
scholarly exhortation seemed to flow from 
some invisible source, and find its way over 
the top down into the recesses of the pew. 

Those times are gone. When the old 
chapel was destroyed, great was the discus- 
sion as to the style of architecture to be 
adopted in rebuilding it. The elders stood 
out stoutly for the good old style, and would 
have had the place merely restored, regarding 
the desire for Gothic as symptomatic of loose 
religious principles, and inevitably tending 
to scepticism on inspiration and miracles. 

But the neighbouring congregation at G 

had recently built a handsome church, which 
dazzled the minds of our people when they 
occasionally visited it, with its open roof, 
and stained windows, and gorgeous altar 
cloths, and at length the more artistic taste 
prevailed. 

It was in the interval that, as I began by 
saying, we worshipped in the Masonic Hall. 

42 



PEWS 

It seemed a curious thing, after the privacy 
of those dark old pews, to be sitting all 
together on benches, able to look at your 
neighbours, and to see everybody who was 
there. Some did not like it. Old Mr. Biffin, 
who for twenty years had never missed going 
to sleep in his old corner pew under the 
gallery, declared he could take no pleasure 
in the sermons now ; and the elder Miss 
Spokers, who were the two first ladies married 
in the new chapel, protested that they did not 
like being so exposed ; they thought ' privacy 
in worship enabled you to enter so much 
more deeply into the service,' but it was 
generally considered that their views had at 
least partial reference to more sublunary 
emotions. 

The congregation, however, for the most 
part, liked the change very much. It brought 
them more together. Mr. S. and Mr. B., 
who had, purely through good breeding 
and not from any estrangement, ignored 
each other's existence for years, though wor- 
shippers in neighbouring pews, were led, by 
the fact of Mr. S.'s umbrella falling on Mr. 
B.'s feet, to slight interchange of greetings, 
which, increased by a little mutual accommo- 

43 



PEWS 

dation in hymn-books, ripened into a warm 
friendship between the families. People who 
had sat down-stairs for a generation found 
out that there were many people regularly 
attending the same place, of whose existence, 
from the fact of their sitting in the gallery, 
they had been perfectly unaware. Sitting 
close together and there being only a very 
small chamber-organ, lent by one of the 
congregation, the people were actually be- 
trayed into a heartiness of singing, which 
had been impossible when each person was 
singing in a deep wooden box, and which 
I am sorry to say has never been attained since. 
In short, there was more social feeling, more 
mingling of class with class, more of the kindly 
spirit of brotherhood evoked during that 
year than ever had been dreamed of. Our 
parson seemed to preach more home to us all 
than ever before. It was a new sensation 
when we all rose together for prayer, some 
kneeling down, and fathers and mothers 
holding their little children kindly by the 
hand as they prayed. It seemed more like 
real worship, and sometimes when the summer 
sun came shining in upon us sitting so to- 
gether, I do believe a blessing came into our 

44 



PEWS 

hearts, and we all felt, as we had never done 
before, what it was to be members of one 
church. 

Perhaps it was the experience of these 
meetings in the Masonic Hall which suggested 
to a few of our people the idea of doing away 
with pews altogether in the new chapel. 
Certain it is that the idea was mooted, and a 
few took it up very warmly. It found, how- 
ever, very little favour. It was, indeed, 
urged with some force that it was no innova- 
tion, but merely a returning to the old custom 
from which the church had never departed 
until the Reformation. But habit was too 
strong. Even the very people who had re- 
marked on the greater sociability of our 
temporary arrangements, shuddered at the 
idea of being permanently without pews. 
8 What ? ' said Mrs. X., the leader of our 
congregational fashion, ' would you have me 
sit side by side with all the dirty ragged 
people out of the street ? ' ' How are we 
to do with our families, one sitting here and 
another there, never certain that we might 
not be dispersed all over the chapel, 5 said a 
fond parent whose family certainly used to 
produce a considerable effect by regularly 

45 



PEWS 

trooping in all together in the middle of the 
second lesson. Mr. M. said it was ' levelling ' ; 
Mr. T. affirmed it was ' low, and radical, and 
all that sort of thing ; sir ! and really if this 
kind of thing goes on we shall all be obliged 
to go off to church ! ' 

Of what use was it suggesting to Mrs. X. 
that the dirty ragged people were not in the 
habit of attending churches and chapels ; 
and that if they could be induced to come 
it would soon result in their dirt and rags 
disappearing ! In vain, also, to tell the 
anxious parent that the society of her chil- 
dren would easily be secured by their all 
coming in good time. The public sentiment 
was against it, and pews carried the day ! 

And yet I cannot help thinking it is a pity 
the plan of free and open seats was not tried. 
Certain it is that since we got into our new- 
chapel the pews have caused more bickerings 
and jealousies than anything else, except 
the psalmody. 

It is a curious question by what rules the 
pews in particular parts of our chapels 
acquire a certain conventional superiority. 
In one chapel the front pews just by the pulpit 
are coveted, and become the object of secret 

46 



PEWS 

intrigues with the chapel-warden, whenever 
one of them falls vacant. In another chapel 
you will find those front pews given up to 
the waifs and strays of the congregation ; 
poor old people, who sit there that they may 
be in nobody's way, and those groups of very 
little children, in charge of a staid matron of 
eight years old, who wander furtively in, 
if they can escape the apparitor, on Sunday 
evenings. In one chapel I know it is the 
gallery which is the ' respectable ' position ; 
and no one is looked upon as at all qualified 
for the select circles of the congregation 
who sits in what is contemptuously designated 
1 the pit ' ; while in many others the square 
pews down-stairs are a sort of ' west-end ' 
for first-class sinners, and the galleries are 
occupied by certain inferior orders, — as a 
fashionable lady said to me confidentially, 
speaking of her own chapel, about which I 
was making some inquiries, with a view to 
this paper, ' the kind of people who go to 
tea parties and teach in the Sunday School, 
and make themselves useful, you know ; 
very good people, very estimable indeed, and 
one is very glad that the minister makes him- 
self at home among them ; but not the sort 

47 



PEWS 

of people, you know, that one could have 
anything to do with ! ' 

In our chapel, by a curious and unaccount- 
able vagary, it is the two transepts which 
respectability has marked out for its own. 
They are in no way superior to the other pews ; 
in fact, all our pews are alike, long and narrow, 
with backs reaching just below your shoulders 
against which the book-ledge projects a 
little uncomfortably. But, nevertheless, 
those pews in the transept have some peculiar 
charm that attracts the ambition of our people. 
When the Crocketts came down from London 
to settle in our city, it was expected that they 
would join the chapel, as they had always 
attended at Sussex Street when in town ; 
and they came a few times, and, indeed, 
inquiries were made for a pew in the transept, 
but none was vacant just then ; and very 
soon after they went to the Cathedral, Mr. 
Crockett alleging that the church is getting 
so liberal now that it is mere factiousness to 
stand aloof from it. As our people rise in 
the world — and they have a wonderful knack 
of rising — they gradually begin to set their 
minds on a pew in the transept, just as in 
the old chapel they did on a square pew. 

48 



PEWS 

Sometimes a vacancy occurs. Then comes a 
contest — who is to have it ? The F.s speak 
to the chapel-warden ; they have long been 
thinking of changing, there is such a terrible 
draught where they sit. But the G.s have 
been at him already. ' Mr. G. doesn't like 
the gallery, and that pew would just suit 
him.' And while they are settling which of 
them is to have it, it is discovered that 
another family have already removed their 
books and cushions in, and quietly taken 
possession by a private arrangement with 
the last occupants. Of course they had no 
right to do so ; but they are in, and posses- 
sion is nine points of the law. So henceforth 
these three families will be deadly polite to 
each other ! 

Joint occupancy is a fertile source ot 
grievances. There are the Pawtons ; they 
were very nice people in the chapel 
till the other half of their pew was taken 
by a respectable family who had left the 
Baptists to come amongst us. But the 
Pawtons were chemists, while the new family 
had only a provision shop, and the amalga- 
mation was very difficult. I know the 
Pawtons well, and they used to tell me their 

49 d 



PEWS 

little grievances. * Actually, sir, that stout 
woman went and took my corner last Sunday 
week, and though I told her that there 
she would have the pillar between her and 
the preacher, which I don't mind myself, 
she said she should do very well ! * Then, 
being converts, they would bring their friends 
with them, and filled their half of the pew 
quite full. Then troubles arose over the 
Prayer books, and Mr. Pawton's old pocket 
Bible was missing one Sunday, and the 
strangers were suspected of having lent it 
at the evening service to some people in 
another pew. Miss Pawton used to come 
to the Sunday School, but when the young 
man from the provision shop joined it, her 
mother found she couldn't spare her, and 
she soon broke off ; but I know it was all 
from fear lest it might involve more intimacy 
than could be tolerated in their embittered 
state of feeling. At last the poor strangers 
were fairly driven off the field, and went 
back to the Baptists, declaring that 'they 
could do with the parson and the preaching, 
but as for the people, they were a nasty, 
proud, stuck-up lot, without a bit of real 
manners, and they couldn't do with it.* 

So 



PEWS 

Of course it was very wrong and unjust 
to say so ; but that is the way these little 
personal discourtesies, which arise from this 
system of ' reserved seats, 5 get exaggerated. 

When will people learn to show Christian 
kindliness in small matters ? 



5* 



V. 

A COUNTRY TEA PARTY. 

We had our soiree last week. It was a 
great and fashionable occasion. We held it 
in the large hall of the Philosophical Institute, 
which is the crack assembly room of our city, 
and really when the tables were all set out 
and filled with guests it was a beautiful sight. 
Mrs. Eutychus had a tray at one of the 
bottom tables, and very excited she had been 
for some days previously, on the question 
whether she ought to take her silver tea- 
spoons or only the common electro-plate. 
But the finest sight was at the top table. 
There were the vases of most splendid flowers ; 
there, the richest cake-baskets ; and there 
the two splendid footmen of old Mr. Biffin, 
who are not above making themselves useful 
at these little festivities, and who give an 
air of grandeur to the whole entertainment 
which is much valued by our people. After 

52 



A COUNTRY TEA PARTY 

tea we had speeches : we had caught a live 
Sheriff, who was put in the chair, duly primed 
with a little address, which would have 
produced more effect if it had been audible 
beyond the fifth row of the people ; but it 
was something to see the impressive way 
in which he raised and lowered his hands, 
and when he paused and drank a little water 
in the temporary embarrassment of having 
run away from his nominative case, the 
clapping was enthusiastic and the general 
feeling highly exhilarating. Then came the 
usual variety of speeches. A flowery and 
imaginative speech from a minister with 
long hair, and a historical speech which 
enlarged on the glorious two thousand. Then 
there was the usual speech on ' civil and 
religious liberty, 5 which brought down the 
house, on - slavery,' ' Garibaldi, 5 and the 
recent appointment of the sheriff, which was 
understood to be a death-blow to all the more 
intolerant features of ' church and state. 9 
A converted Mandarin had been expected, 
who had recently produced much sensation 
at religious meetings, but, to the great dis- 
appointment, especially of the ladies, he 
did not appear. Besides all these, there were 

S3 



A COUNTRY TEA PARTY 

the usual number of speeches on nothing in 
particular, which seemed chiefly introduced 
for the purpose of preventing half-a-dozen 
neighbouring ministers from feeling slighted. 
By these cheerful amusements the evening 
passed quickly away, and at half-past ten 
the choir sang the dismissal hymn for us, 
and we broke up, not without gratitude 
that it was over. 

Reflecting afterwards, as I sat in my easy- 
chair, on the nature of religious entertain- 
ments among civilised people, there came 
vividly to my recollection an evening I passed 
some years ago among some simple-hearted 
primitive people in one of the large manu- 
facturing villages of Lancashire. They have 
a plain old-fashioned chapel, with deep 
galleries in which the congregation mostly 
sit, the body of the chapel being used as a 
Sunday School. They have no regular minis- 
ter, at least they had not in those days, but 
the place of one was w T ell supplied by a sturdy 
old man who will be remembered for genera- 
tions to come, and whose plain homely words 
were far more thought of than the finer 
compositions of the c College lads ' who used 
at times to go over as supplies. They are 

54 



A COUNTRY TEA PARTY 

not a fashionable congregation ; there is 
not one among them who would set up for a 
gentleman, and I am afraid Mr. Biffin's 
footmen would look upon their annual 
festivities as very low, but I have always 
found them an earnest, warm-hearted, hos- 
pitable people, and I like now and then to go 
and spend a Sunday among them, and listen 
to their homely preaching and their strong 
hearty singing and the band that rivals 
for number and variety of instruments that 
to which David dedicates some of his Psalms. 
It was a fine frosty winter evening, near 
the merry Christmas time, that I got out 
at the Bankside station to walk about a 
mile through rows of weavers' cottages, and 
now and then by some great factory, to the 
chapel. Long before I reached it I could 
see the long row of windows, through which 
the lights gleamed with a cheerful welcome 
out into the night. There was a merry 
sound of laughing and talking, w r ith the 
clatter of crockery, as I entered the chapel- 
yard, and many a hearty shake of the hand 
greeted me as I passed along the narrow 
aisle to take off my coat and wrappers in 
the vestry, which, for the occasion, was 

55 



A COUNTRY TEA PARTY 

consecrated to the miscellaneous purposes 
of stores and tea, cloaks and bonnets, and 
robing for the subsequent dramatic enter- 
tainments. Behind the door was a mighty 
tin can, full of boiling tea, with clamorous 
applicants standing about with urns. There, 
too, were tables, at which stood half-a-dozen 
bonny lasses, up to the elbows in cake and 
bread and butter. But what was this to 
the sight which awaited me when I went 
back into the chapel, in which— there being 
no schoolroom — the tea party was held ! 
It was crowded — body, aisles, and gallery. 
Such groups of merry country people taking 
tea in the pews and in the open space beneath 
the gallery ! Such a thick fog of steam aris- 
ing from the tea and from the hot, ruddy faces 
of four hundred merry folks, and settling on 
the windows and trickling down the walls ! 
Such cries for cream and sugar — and, ' Now, 
Bill, art 'tee boun' to be aw neet wi' that bread 
an' butter ? Come, lad, we're welly clammin.' 
c Here, Maister Eutychus, yo come and 
sit along wi' us ; and my Missus ull mak yo 5 
a cup of tea.' And so I w T ent and took my 
place in a deep, old-fashioned pew, where a 
merry family group were getting tea together. 

56 



A COUNTRY TEA PARTY 

There was the father, a middle-aged man, an 
overlooker in one of the neighbouring mills — 
a staid, solid man of fifty. There was his 
' Missus,' a comely dame, in a wonderful 
black satin dress, and a prize cap that was 
reserved for great occasions. There were 
two rosy girls with dimpled faces and smooth 
beautiful hair that you could have seen 
yourself in — regular Lancashire witches, who 
were up every morning of their lives by five 
o'clock, and off to the factory, There 
was also a shy young man in the corner, 
who never spoke, and seldom even looked, 
but whom, I was afterwards confidentially 
informed, was 'keeping company along of 
our 'Lizabeth.' Many a Sunday had I passed 
with them in their plain but neat, hospitable, 
plentiful home, years before, when 'Lizabeth 
was a coy little puss, who used to sit on my 
knee and play with my bunch of keys ; and 
now they all gladly made a place for me, 
and I was plied with tea and cake, and bread 
and butter, till I could hardly sit, and still 
was pressed with hospitable assurances that 
I'd eaten nothing ! So the tea passed off. 
When we had done we had to turn out for 
another set who stood about in the chapel- 

57 



A COUNTRY TEA PARTY 

yard, or in the gallery — for there were over 
five hundred altogether — and, according to 
the custom of the place, they were to ■ take 
tea at three times, 5 as they said. 

But at last all were satisfied, the tea things 
were cleared away, the slops of tea wiped up, 
the orchestra had done their tuning and were 

ready for a start, and old Isaac , their 

preacher, had got into the little pulpit, which 
was ' the chair ' for the occasion. 

Such a chorus they started with ! 'Judge 
me, oh Lord ' ; five-and-twenty voices keep- 
ing splendid time, and singing as none but 
Lancashire folk can sing. And then the old 
chairman got up and made a short address, 
bidding them all ' welcome/ and saying a 
little about the state of their society during 
the year gone by. He was a homely speaker, 
not very regular in his pronouns, and very 
lax in regard to his c h's,' but he spoke in 
such a kind and fatherly way, for he had 
been one of their preachers when the middle- 
aged men there, were little children, that * the 
eye blessed him as it saw him ' ; and when 
he spoke of some who were with them 
no more, and reminded them that he could 
not expect to see many more such meetings, 

58 



A COUNTRY TEA PARTY 

there were few eyes that did not glisten with 
a teai . 

And now the intellectual entertainment 
of the evening began. The pews before the 
pulpit had been boarded over for the occasion, 
making a platform, and thither came up boys 
and girls of all sizes to ' say their pieces/ 
The old man in the pulpit acted as prompter 
as well as chairman, and as the little reciters 
came up one by one they handed the books, 
in which they had been frantically looking 
over their pieces to the last moment, over the 
edge of the pulpit, and then making a bow 
or a curtsey to the pulpit, and another to the 
expectant gallery full of friends, plunged into 
the subject. There were all sorts of pieces 
said in all sorts of ways. Up came a big lad 
with ' The Inchcape Bell, 5 which gave fine 
scope for that peculiar swinging recitative 
which so assists imperfect memories. Up 
came two demure-looking little lasses with the 
usual prose dialogue in which Betsy and Jane 
discuss the merits of going to school, and 
Betsy, who began ' Good afternoon, my dear 
Jane, I hope you are not thinking of going 
to the Sunday School this fine afternoon,' 
is converted by Jane's remonstrances, and 

59 



A COUNTRY TEA PARTY 

ends by the most exemplary acknowledgment 
of error. But the finest sight was where a 
c little wee toddlin' thing/ not above seven 
years old, dressed — to borrow an expression 
— within an inch of her life, was set upon a 
chair and, amid breathless silence, in a clear 
shrill little voice, of which every syllable 
could be heard by all, repeated a pretty little 
ballad about c Dutiful Jim.' I shall never 
forget that prim little phenomenon, nor how 
she brought down the house when she finished, 
and with the same imperturbable gravity 
made another little curtsey and retired into 
private life. 

But now a stir and bustle took place, the 
platform was cleared, and evidently some- 
thing was about to take place. c What are 
we going to have now ? * I asked of my 
friends — we were sitting now in a front 
pew in the gallery — ' Oh dunnot you know, 
they're going to act a play — its * Joseph and 
his brethren ! ' This was evidently the crown- 
ing event of the evening. There was Joseph 
in a patchwork counterpane done up about 
him in the style well known to have been 
characteristic of Hebrew youth. There were 
His brethren who rated him for his pre- 

60 



A COUNTRY TEA PARTY 

sumption, in endless blank verse. But how 
can I describe the thrilling effect when 
Joseph was let down by his remorseless 
relatives through an opening in the stage 
into the communion pew ! And then the 
feast, when a deputation from the brothers 
—for the platform would not hold a table to 
accommodate more than four — sat down 
amid the imaginary gorgeousness of Pharaoh's 
palace to a sumptuous banquet of two plates 
of dry biscuits and a decanter of raspberry 
vinegar, while Joseph walked up and down 
in mental anguish, telling the audience how 
he was hardly able to restrain himself from 
making his kinship known. 

But why criticise these humble pleasures. 
The actors did their best, and the audience 
listened with open mouths and ears, and every 
one was pleased, and so was I. Perhaps I 
have seen better acting ; and the ' mise en 
scene* was far from perfect. It seemed a 
strange thing, too, acting plays in a chapel, 
I could not help wondering what our respect- 
able people would say — but I thought of the 
old miracle plays, and was reconciled when 
I saw how the simple story told upon the 
audience. 

61 



A COUNTRY TEA PARTY 

I like that humble tea party. I like the 
heartiness of the people, and their old- 
fashioned hospitable ways. 

And as I sit writing this it all seems to 
come before me as if it were but yesterday. 
I hear the old man's kindly tones that will 
speak no more on earth ; I hear the little 
reciter and the broad Lancashire of Joseph 
and his brethren ; I hear the last hymn and 
the few words of blessing ; I hear the merry 
voices of the people trooping out into the 
moonlight and shouting pleasantly to each 
other at the lane ends, as they part towards 
their various homes with happy thoughts 
and feelings to cheer them for a year to 
come, 



62 



VI. 

A RATHER FASTIDIOUS 
CONGREGATION. 

Mrs. Eutychus and I have been having 
our yearly holiday. The last part of it 
she spent at the sea side with the children, 
while I have been visiting some relations of 
mine, two maiden ladies who live near 
London, at the pretty little country town of 
Wattleton-in-the-Marshes. Their connection 
with my family will at once be recalled by 
my readers when I mention that their name 
is Blaise — Euphemia and Jane Blaise — and 
that they are own neices to the late Mrs. 
Mary Blaise on whom Goldsmith wrote 
that beautiful epitaph in which he delicately 
alluded to our family peculiarity in the 
words — 

'She never slumbered in her pew 
But when she shut her eyes. 1 

These two excellent ladies are leading 
63 



A FASTIDIOUS CONGREGATION 

people in the little congregation at Wattleton. 
Having lived there from childhood on a small 
property of their own, they know every man, 
woman, and child in the place ; and though 
they are precluded by their sex from exercising, 
directly, the functions of trustees or members 
of committee in the chapel, they are not 
without considerable influence in congrega- 
tional affairs. As most of the other members 
are recent accessions since the opening of 
the railways to the metropolis some years 
ago, families of retired Londoners, or men 
of business who prefer living out of town, 
my cousins have a sort of prescriptive pre- 
cedence at clothing meetings, tea parties, 
and all such little congregational activities. 
But it is as sources of intelligence that they 
are most remarkable. I must confess to 
liking a bit of quiet gossip myself, — not 
scandal, that is gossip run into uncharitable- 
ness, but a good long talk over everything 
that is going on, — and when I go down to 
Wattleton I am sure of having the latest 
intelligence about our ecclesiastical affairs. 
They can always tell me who is the real author 
of that article in the ' Rational ■ which the 
acute literary taste of metropolitan critics 

64 



A FASTIDIOUS CONGREGATION 

constantly — but erroneously — ascribes to c the 
polished and graceful style of the accomplished 
etc., etc' They know all about the real 

influences which led Mr. to secede 

from the Church. They have always just 
had a letter from a friend belonging to that 
influential congregation that is vacant, and 
know how matters actually stand, and who 
is really likely to be chosen minister. And 
they know the occult causes which broke 
off the arrangements, understood by the 
public to have been completed, for Mr. Y. 
to take the pulpit at Hexham. 

This time, however, the topics of our 
conversation chiefly arose out of the fact of 
their own chapel being without a minister. 
If I might venture to hint at such a thing, 
the congregation at Wattleton are a little 
undecided, and never seem to know their own 
mind. They have a tendency also to stone 
their prophets and afterwards build them 
sepulchres. I gather this from the fact that 
their old minister, who has been at rest these 
twenty years, and whose last days were 
embittered by a chronic state of congregational 
dissatisfaction, arising out of his old sermons, 
his dislike to visiting, and his humdrum ways, 

65 E 



A FASTIDIOUS CONGREGATION 

has since been canonised in their affectionate 
remembrance as an ideal preacher and pastor, 
and is constantly thrown at the heads of the 
rising generation. Since his demise they 
may be said never to have been settled. 
In those twenty years they have had six 
ministers, and they are now more unsettled 
than ever. To the original elements of what 
in the old times was a quiet little country 
congregation, have been added several fas- 
tidious London families, accustomed to the 
most refined religious exercises, and also a 
number of thinking artizans, with a strong 
tendency to scepticism, and a liking for rude 
and impetuous rhetoric, who were attracted 
to the chapel during the brief ministry of 
Mr. Buncombe, afterwards the celebrated 
chartist orator. It is true that these latter 
have not much influence in the congregation, 
but they form a convenient peg on which 
to hang a grievance : and more than one 
minister has been complained of, either for 
too much or too little regard for them, by 
persons in the congregation who could find 
no fault with his services on their own account. 
It will be easily understood that among 
these many and different elements, is a rather 

66 



A FASTIDIOUS CONGREGATION 

trying position for a minister. It is true they 
all believe themselves to be a congregation 
easily satisfied and disposed to go to the very 
extreme of forbearance. c We don't expect 
much, 5 said Miss Euphemia, when during 
the last vacancy but two, they were lamenting 
that it was so difficult to obtain a suitable 
minister. ' Of course we don't look for such 
a man as Mr. R., or Mr. X. (naming the two 
ablest ministers we have), the salary we are 
able to offer being only small. Give us a 
gentleman, with good average preaching 
powers ; we don't ask for eloquence, though 
at the same time he ought to have the gift 
of attracting the people — you have no idea 
what a field there is among the intelligent 
brickmakers in this district ; — then he cer- 
tainly ought to be a scholar, one could not 
think of appointing a half-educated man 
to a pulpit that had been filled by Dr. M.' 
* Well, and we do expect,' put in cousin Jane, 
1 that his wife shall be a lady, because there 
is a good deal of visiting in our congregation, 
and we like our minister's wife to take a 
high standing among us. But give us these 
few essentials, and no congregation is more 
easy to please.' 

67 



A FASTIDIOUS CONGREGATION 

The only time during which there has been 
any settled congregational peace since the 
death of good old Dr. M., was for a period 
of about six years, while a young minister 
was with them, who left to take charge of 
a large congregation in the neighbouring 
town of Upton. Though twelve years have 
passed since that time, his removal is still 
a tender and sore point. ' We did not think/ 
my cousins often say, ' he would have left us 
in that ungrateful way, after being with us 
six years, and we all so much attached to 
him, too ! There was nothing we would not 
have done for that young man, and yet when 
those Upton people came, and offered him 
another hundred a year, he went and accepted 
it at once. Why, if we had only known, we 
would have raised it for him in a minute. 
But that's the way ! Ministers may talk, but 
after all they are just as worldly as other 
people ! ' I have, indeed, tried once or twice 
to suggest that if they were able to raise the 
salary in order to have kept him, they should 
have done so without waiting for him to be 
invited somewhere else ; and that a minister 
might not like to accept an effort made by 
his congregation merely for their own sake, 



A FASTIDIOUS CONGREGATION 

which they had never thought of making 
for his sake. But it is of no use. Miss Jane 
Blaise always takes me up with ' Oh, of course, 
we don't blame him, he had a perfect right 
to please himself ; but I must say my opinion 
of ministers was a good deal shaken by it.' 

Since that brief period of repose, the people 
at Wattleton have, indeed, had a poor time 
of it. For about a year they had a succession 
of candidates, I think fourteen was the num- 
ber, and were in consequence split up into 
three violent factions, each with a favourite 
candidate. While matters were in this state 
there happened to come as supply for a Sun- 
day, a Mr. Buncombe, who preached a sermon 
about liberty, which had the happy effect 
of uniting the whole congregation in a fervent 
desire to have him as their minister, under 
the influence of which the previous expec- 
tants were incontinently thrown over, and 
Mr. Buncombe elected by acclamation. The 
enthusiasm was brief, however. For a while 
the chapel was crowded, and Mr. Buncombe 
was the idol of the people. But by and by 
an election came, and he was found harangu- 
ing the mob in favour of a democratic candi- 
date, whom the respectability of Wattleton- 

69 



A FASTIDIOUS CONGREGATION 

in-the-Marshes had seen with aversion brought 
in to split up their narrow liberal majority, 
and dire was the wrath of Mr. Drayton, the 
banker, and of the rest of the leading people. 
And when a few months afterwards he was 
discovered to be aiding the brickmakers in 
a strike, the vials of wrath overflowed, and 
our denominational organ the following week 
contained an announcement that ' Mr. Bun- 
combe had resigned the pulpit at Wattleton.* 
Of the two ministers who have been there 
since, there is not much to say. Each of 
them was chosen after an anxious inspection 
of all the parsons who could be induced to 
offer themselves. Both times the ablest 
candidates were settled somewhere else before 
the Wattleton people could make up their 
minds, and in each case a second-rate man 
was chosen in a hurry at last, with whom 
no one was satisfied. Young Mr. Saunders, 
just fresh from college, was inexperienced 
in the pulpit and awkward in society. His 
sermons were too cold and philosophical, and 
c you know he took no standing whatever 
in the town.' So, when the year for which 
he had been invited was over, he was not 
asked to remain. Their last venture, Mr. 



A FASTIDIOUS CONGREGATION 

Fidgett, was a middle-aged man, of great 
earnestness, but crotchetty and impracticable. 
He alienated the rich people by preaching 
teetotalism ; the teachers disliked him be- 
cause he wanted to upset all their old plans, 
and remodel the school on an entirely new 
principle ; with the best intentions and the 
most amiable feelings, he managed to tread 
on everyone's corns in turn. At last he 
received an invitation to go out as missionary 
to one of the colonies, and fresh in the recollec- 
tion of all will be the meeting which was held 
a few months since to present him a testi- 
monial and an affectionate parting address. 

So it fell out that when I went to visit my 
cousins, a month ago, I found them in that 
transition state known as ' hearing candi- 
dates. 5 



71 



VII. 

SOME CANDIDATES FOR 
A FASTIDIOUS CONGREGATION. 

Some half century ago, the people of one 
of the outlying parishes in Virginia wrote 
to Dr. Rice, who was then at the head of a 
theological seminary, for a minister. They 
said they wanted a man of first-rate talents, 
for they had run down considerably, and 
needed building up. They wanted one who 
could write well, for some of the young people 
were very nice in their literary tastes. They 
wanted one who could visit a good deal, 
for their former minister had neglected that, 
and they wanted it more attended to. They 
wanted a man of very gentlemanly deportment, 
for some thought a great deal of that ; and 
so they went on describing a perfect minister. 
The last thing they mentioned was that they 
gave their minister £80, but if the Doctor 
would send them just such a man as they had 

72 



CANDIDATES 

described, they would raise another £10, 
or even make it £100. The Doctor sat right 
down — for this is a fact — and wrote them a 
reply, telling them they had better make out 
a call for old Dr. Dwight, in heaven, for he 
did not know of any one in this world who 
answered their description ; and as Dr. 
Dwight had been so long living on spiritual 
food, he might not need so much for the 
body, and possibly could live on a hundred 
a year. 

No such course, however, was practically 
open to the congregation at Wattle ton. 
Indeed, much as they revere the memory 
of Dr. M., whom I mentioned as their ideal 
minister, whose virtues had been surprisingly 
brought out during the twenty years since 
his death, I doubt whether they would have 
been at all unanimous in inviting him again, 
or indeed whether that amiable and cautious 
divine would be at all tempted to return, 
unless — which I could not for a moment 
believe — his place in the next world is as 
much too warm for him as his place in this 
world was too cool. Being limited, therefore, 
to more sublunary sources of ministerial 
supply, the congregation contented them- 

73 



SOME CANDIDATES FOR 

selves with applying to Dr. Y., the principal 
of Tipton College. One of the friends sug- 
gested that Professor X., of Newton Academy, 
should also be consulted, but the congregation 
at once and with dignity negatived the sug- 
gestion. ' You know, cousin,' said Miss 
Euphemia Blaise, when telling me on my 
arrival of the steps that had been taken, 
c though we are only poor we have a proper 
self-respect, and that Newton Academy is 
not a regular college, in fact it is only a sort 
of back-way into the ministry ; and while 
we think it may do great good among the 
poor, and even in the way of temporary 
supplies, we could not look to it for a per- 
manent minister/ c And besides,' put in 
cousin Jane, ' those young men do aspirate 
their " h's " so dreadfully, it would be im- 
possible to listen to it as a regular thing.' 

Though the application to Tipton College 
was the only one formally made, informal 
and tentative communications were opened 
up in many quarters. My cousins wrote to 
me about several young ministers in my own 
neighbourhood, and other members of the 
congregation consulted their friends ; and 
so at last a very pretty list of names was got 

74 



A FASTIDIOUS CONGREGATION 

together of ministers whom it would be 
desirable to hear. These were then asked 
to give a Sunday, at their own convenience 
— of course without the least reference to be- 
coming candidates — simply to supply the 
pulpit as an act of friendliness and accom- 
modation. This considerably thinned the 
list, as some ministers declined to accept 
the invitation because they said it was evident 
what was meant ; and others objected on 
the opposite ground, that they were not 
distinctly invited as candidates. I must 
confess as a layman to sharing the feelings 
of my cousins, that ministers, as well as 
congregations, are occasionally hard to please, 
and that there are no conceivable arrange- 
ments for enabling vacant congregations 
and vacant or removable ministers to become 
mutually acquainted, which would not be 
inveighed against by some of my clerical 
friends as calculated to lower the dignity 
of the ministry, and repugnant to gentle- 
manly feeling. 

When I got down to Wattleton, to spend 
my month's holiday from the Bank, two of the 
candidates had already been heard. Mr. 
Alford was very well, my cousins seemed to 

75 



SOME CANDIDATES FOR 

think, but his sermon was so very — they did 
not know what to call it — only he ' kept telling 
them such a great deal about their sins.' Of 
course it might be tolerated, and forgiven 
once in a way, as injudicious earnestness ; 
but ' that kind of preaching, you know,' 
said my cousin Jane, ' is so very discouraging, 
that we could not think of asking him per- 
manently. 5 

Ah, good people, thought I, I am afraid 
you are fastidious, after all. Mr. Alford 
certainly is a little too much inclined to 
dwell on the darker side of human character, 
and he holds up the spirit of Christianity 
with a faithfulness which spares neither 
his hearers nor himself — you always feel he 
is preaching at himself as well as at others — 
but he is a man whom any congregation 
might be proud to have as minister. 

4 Well, but how about Mr. Beetor, whom I 
advised you to ask ; you had him over last 
Sunday, hadn't you ? ' 

4 Oh, cousin Eutychus,' said both ladies 
at once, in a tone of reproach, ' you canH 
have seen him lately, or you would never 
have recommended him to us.' 

4 At least I hope not.' Thus, cousin Euphe- 

7 6 



A FASTIDIOUS CONGREGATION 

mia, with a slight pursing up of her mouth. 
She can be very short sometimes. 

' Why, what in the world is the matter 
with the man ? I don't know a great deal 
of him, but I heard him give a capital sermon 
at the Parsonshire annual assembly, and I 
know that two or three large town congrega- 
tions have been talking of him.' 

' Oh, yes, that's very likely. Your large 
town congregations are always running after 
novelties, and will put up with anything for 
the sake of excitement. We are not so 
ambitious ; but we do like to be respectable ! ' 

1 Well, but what is it, that you didn't like ?' 

1 Why, when we got to chapel and expected 
to find a decent minister to teach us and 
improve us, think of our seeing a young man 
in the pulpit with a great black ugly mous- 
tache. Think of listening to such a man.' 

It was of no use saying anything, I should 
only have got myself into difficulties, so I 
held my peace, and turned the conversation 
as soon as I could into a different channel. 

The following Sunday it was a Mr. Matthew 
Limmer who was to preach ; one of the senior 
students from Tipton College. The congrega- 
tion I found were in a high state of expecta- 

77 



SOME CANDIDATES FOR 

tion, having heard of him as a very gentle- 
manly young man, and as having no extreme 
views of any kind, ' not a teetotaller, you 
know, or one of those philanthropical people 
who are always making a sensation and 
talking at public meetings.' So I went to 
chapel, rather curious to hear him. 

I must confess to having been a little 
disappointed. I think Mr. Limmer must 
want force of character ; and then there is 
too much curl and white pocket-handkerchief 
about him. There was a ring, too, on one 
of his fingers, which he kept looking at : 
cousin Jane remarked afterwards what beauti- 
ful hands he had, and said it was a sign of 
good blood, but to me it seemed as if he were 
too conscious of it. Indeed, he might be 
said to throw his hands into the service 
a good deal, while I should have liked to 
have seen him throw his heart into it rather 
more. As to the sermon, I must confess that 
I only heard a part of it, but that I set down 
to my hereditary failing. What I did hear, 
however, struck me as thin and flowery ; 
there was a good deal about the singing of 
birds, and the shadows of the umbrageous 
trees, and the still small voice. 

78 



A FASTIDIOUS CONGREGATION 

The congregation, however, appeared de- 
lighted. Such noddings and confidential 
whisperings among the younger bonnets in 
the porch after service ! ' Wasn't it beauti- 
ful ? * ' What a sweet voice ! ' ' And such 
spiritual eyes.' ' My dear, did you observe 
his reading ? It reminded me of dear old Dr. 
M., more than any reading I ever heard/ 
said old Miss Coulson, with many emphatic 
nods of her head, to my cousin Euphemia. 
I am not so sure about the opinion of the 
men. It seemed, I thought, rather a relief 
to them to get out, and have a talk about the 
American war. 

But Mr. Limmer was coming home to dine 
with us, so hospitality must prevent my 
saying anything more, except that the general 
impression in our Wattleton circles during 
the following week was that Mr. Limmer 
was the coming man. 

But they hadn't heard Mr. Delter then. 

Who was this Mr. Delter ? As the week 
passed on and the prospects for the following 
Sunday began to engross the congregational 
mind, which was already getting rather tired 
of eulogising Mr. Matthew Limmer's eyes, and 
voice, and hands, a rumour went about that 

79 



SOME CANDIDATES FOR 

this Mr. Delter was a very extraordinary man. 
He came from a distant part of England and 
was personally unknown at Wattleton, and 
he had lived a quiet secluded life, so that his 
name had seldom appeared on great public 
occasions. But Mr. Drayton, the banker, 
had heard from a friend at a distance about 
his sermons, and when some one had spoken 
to him about at once inviting Mr. Limmer, 
had replied in an oracular way 'no hurry, 
sir, no hurry ; wait till you've heard Mr. 
Delter, that's all.' And Mr. Drayton being 
their largest subscriber, and a ' county man,' 
— I always think the Wattleton people seem 
rather lifted up by the fact of their being 
thus connected with ' the county,' — his 
opinion went for a great deal. 

But his opinion went for more still when, 
on Friday afternoon, little notes were sent 
round to all the more respectable members 
of the congregation inviting them to the 
Grange for Saturday evening, ' to meet the 
Rev. E. Delter.' This seemed at once to 
create a favourable impression, and when 
old Miss Coulson called on my cousins to have 
a little cabinet council as to * what they 
should go in,' and to concoct a plan for 

80 



A FASTIDIOUS CONGREGATION 

jointly chartering the fly — Wattleton had 
only one — from the Crown Hotel, it seemed 
to me that Mr. Matthew Limmer's prospects 
were growing very faint indeed. 

A very congregational party it was that 
evening. It was astonishing how many the 
Draytons had found room for. Everybody 
seemed to be there. There were the old 
people in groups about the wide old fireplace, 
and the young people in knots in the bow 
window and in the library, which opened off 
the drawing-room by great folding doors. 
There was old Mrs. Crook, who had been 
housekeeper to the late Dr. M., and who 
lived in a little cottage outside the town, 
on a very small annuity. Very proud the 
old lady looked in her much mended black 
silk dress, and some antique lace of the 
genuine cream colour, which was understood 
to have been ' in the family.' There was Mr. 
Sneezby, the draper, chapel-warden at this 
present, who seemed distracted between the 
reserve of one who had pecuniary dealings 
with most of the company over his counter 
(which seemed to suggest a respectful bow) 
and the cordiality of his congregational 
sympathies (which evidently impelled him 

8l F 



SOME CANDIDATES FOR 

to a general shaking of hands). There was 
even one of the master brickmakers there, 
who had been singled out as the super- 
intendent of the Sunday School, and who was 
embarrassed by the tea-tray being handed 
to him, and his being expected to perform 
the delicate gymnastic exercise of eating and 
drinking as he stood. But the host and 
hostess bustled about, with a kind, hospitable 
smile and word for everyone ; and by and by 
the stiffness wore off, and the people settled 
down together, and everyone enjoyed it 
exceedingly. 

But about Mr. Delter ? On the hearth-rug 
when we entered (talking to Mr. Drayton) 
stood a gaunt, lanky man, with light hair, 
and no white cravat, but only a collar loosely 
turned down over a black ribbon. He had 
a shy, awkward look, and I think he was very 
short-sighted. But, horror of horrors, he had 
a long straggling beard and — moustache ! 
I expected to see Miss Euphemia faint on 
the spot, and cousin Jane lift up her voice 
and testify : or that, at the least, they would 
show by their manner the high moral dis- 
approval which they had manifested so 
strongly in the case of Mr. Beetor. But 

82 



A FASTIDIOUS CONGREGATION 

circumstances have sometimes a wonderful 
influence in mollifying the feelings, and when 
Mr. Drayton came forward to receive my 
cousins in his most courtly manner, and 
taking the stranger by the hand, begged 
to introduce him to ' Miss Blaise and Miss 
Jane Blaise, two of my most particular 
friends, 5 the effect was magical, and they 
received him with gracious dignity. Mr. 
Delter was evidently no ladies' man ; there 
was a kind of rugged strength about him, 
and yet at the same time something of 
gentleness too, and when he got animated 
in conversation as the evening wore on, 
his face lighted up, till its ungainly features 
had a fine and noble look. 

I have my own opinion as to the impression 
that Mr. Delter would have made if he had 
fallen upon the unprepared minds of the 
congregation on the following day ; but as 
it was, his little eccentricities and peculi- 
arities had been let down upon them gently 
under favourable circumstances, and when 
Sunday came they were all expectation. 
And, indeed, there was something very strik- 
ing in the whole service ; not eloquence, but 
simplicity and earnestness, which made you 

83 



SOME CANDIDATES FOR 

forget the man in his subject, as he seemed 
to speak right to the heart and conscience. 
At first there was something of the abrupt- 
ness and awkwardness which we had noticed 
the night before ; but gradually as he got 
hold of his subject, his hesitation passed 
away, and one's attention became fastened 
on him, and it became impossible not to listen. 
There were many things in the sermon that 
sounded odd and strange, being so different 
from the ordinary pulpit phraseology and 
illustration ; but the whole sermon took hold 
of the mind and left one thinking of it. When 
the service was over I noticed that very little 
was said ; there was for once none of that 
talking over the sermon and the preacher 
the moment the congregation got out, which 
is so common and which I had noticed the 
previous Sunday in the case of Mr. Limmer. 
Everybody was very friendly, but all seemed 
thoughtful, and only a few of the heads of 
the congregation stayed behind to compare 
notes and exchange opinions. 

I never was more struck than on this occa- 
sion with the fact that even the most fastidious 
people are open to true and deep impressions, 
the moment religion is preached to them in 

8 4 



A FASTIDIOUS CONGREGATION 

a very earnest and simple way. Here was a 
man with half a dozen peculiarities which 
would have repelled ordinary people, and yet 
they ceased to be noticed because he appeared 
to be really absorbed by the great thoughts 
of religion, and to long to reach the souls 
of his hearers. It was a sermon which 
seemed to make us all feel humbled, and yet 
there was nothing morbid or depressing in it ; 
and, while holding up very high ideas of 
religion and of duty, it was spoken in a brave 
helpful tone which had an encouraging and 
invigorating effect upon the soul. I do think 
our preachers have it more in their own 
power to do a good work than they are 
generally aware of. For, at the bottom of 
all the fastidiousness and conventionality 
of which they complain as hindering their 
influence — even in those who seem most 
worldly and least open to religious impres- 
sions — there is a spiritual nature, with wants 
and longings deeper, perhaps, than ever find 
their way into words, ready to give a hearty 
response to anyone who will break through the 
superficial crust of reserve, and speak, not in 
timid propriety to the critical mind, but with 
earnest conviction to the living soul beneath. 

85 



CANDIDATES 

They heard several other candidates at 
Wattleton ; some more eloquent, and many 
more c proper, 5 according to all accepted 
canons of judgment among respectable con- 
gregations, but the best of them seemed 
flat and insipid ; and, according to the latest 
accounts I have received, Wattleton is likely 
soon to present the interesting spectacle 
of a fastidious congregation flying in the 
face of all its own most cherished prejudices, 
by extending a cordial and unanimous invita- 
tion to Mr. Delter. 



86 



VIII. 

OVERMUCH DISCOURSE, 

Now, my Brother Joe, he approves of long 
sermons. He is a minister, — I think I have 
not mentioned him before, — and in our family 
we all consider him a remarkably able 
preacher. It was he who preached that 
magnificent sermon on the Quartodeciman 
Controversy before the Parsonshire Autumnal 
Convention last year. It was described in 
our denominational organs at the time as 
having, it was hoped, finally disposed of 
that interesting historical question, and as 
being replete with erudition. So it was ; 
but it lasted an hour and a quarter, and I 
know the secret heart-burnings which it 
caused among the brethren assembled on 
that important occasion, who had some 
unusually interesting business to transact 
afterwards, previous to the slight refection 
with which those assemblies conclude. I 

87 



OVERMUCH DISCOURSE 

spoke to Joe about this afterwards, but it 
was of no use. He says he will not, for his 
part, give in to the emasculated taste of the 
present day. He holds that no man can 
take up a subject and work it through 
properly in less than an hour. And, indeed, 
I dare say he is right ; only the difficulty is 
to convince a congregation of the paramount 
necessity of a subject being ' worked through.' 
He was preaching our charity sermons only 
last Sunday week, our teachers having asked 
him, out of regard for me. It certainly was 
a discourse of great power, and showed 
immense research. It went thoroughly into 
the subject of education, bringing before us 
the opinions and practices of ancient nations, 
examining the questions of secular and 
religious education and the duty of the state 
to educate the people, and ending with a 
powerful appeal to Christian parents. I 
was proud of Joe ; and yet I could not but 
feel that if he had left out the first forty 
minutes, and given us only the last twenty- 
five, his sermon would have done more good. 
There was old Mrs. Baker fidgetting about 
in her pew, and turning round continually 
to look at the clock ; I knew well enough 

88 



OVERMUCH DISCOURSE 

that she was thinking of the pudding which 
she had put on the fire, in faith, before she 
left home ; and that her mind was revolving 
the various contingencies which might justify 
her in rushing out before service was over. 
And there was Mr. Biffin, unable to sleep 
longer than his customary half-hour, pulling 
out his watch every few minutes, in the pew 
behind me, and blowing his nose, as none but 
irritated old gentlemen can ; all because he 
had heard his carriage drive up, and knew 
that the horses were catching cold. And 
afterwards did not half the congregation 
look at me reproachfully, as if it were I who 
had been preaching too long ? I can't 
justify this. I feel it is as my brother says, 
that people are become degenerate ; but 
the fact being so, I couldn't help suggesting 
to Joe whether it were not better for our 
religious exercises to be modified accordingly. 
Certainly people must have had strong 
stomachs for divinity in the good old times. 
Among the Puritans no man would have 
been reckoned worthy to be a preacher who 
had attempted to preach less than an hour 
and a half or two hours. Often they ex- 
ceeded this. Good Oliver Heywood speaks 

89 



OVERMUCH DISCOURSE 

incidentally of a private exercise at the 
house of Mr. Angier, of Denton, where he 
began the service, ' continuing about three 
hours pouring out my soul before the Lord, 
principally on behalf of his church.' This 
was only the beginning ; what must the 
full service have been ? 

What a change from those times to the 
latter part of last century, when a country 
squire would let it be known that he should 
never ask the parson to dinner if his sermon 
went over twenty minutes ! I think that 
is unreasonably short ; and yet I do not 
know whether even in so brief a space as 
twenty minutes, a man who would speak to 
the point might not put something which 
would produce quite as strong and lasting 
an impression as if he took a much longer 
time about it. But somehow — I speak it 
with all respect ; I fancy that as a layman 
it is dangerous ground for me, — a minister 
never can find in his heart to leave out any- 
thing he has written. He has penned a dis- 
course, say, which he knows will take him 
fifty minutes to read, and he knows in his 
heart 'twere better an 'twere shorter. But 
what shall he leave out ? He cannot leave 

90 



OVERMUCH DISCOURSE 

out his arguments, for they are all necessary 
to each other, and no one of them but is 
essential to a complete view. Then he reads 
over his illustrations ; but they are the 
pet part of the discourse. What, cross out 
that eloquent passage about woods and 
birds and waving corn ? or that touching 
appeal to the experience of the young parent ? 
layman as I am, I can understand how the 
preacher loves such passages, like the apple 
of his eye, and cannot bring himself to such 
slaughter of the innocents. And yet there 
is nothing else left to curtail except the 
practical application, and it would be cow- 
ardly to lessen the force or comprehensiveness 
of that. No, there seems no portion that 
can be spared. And yet dear young preacher, 
who art sitting in thy study pondering this 
dilemma, do not deceive yourself ; it were 
better to cut out the most beautiful sentence 
that ever delighted your heart, and sounded 
pleasantly as you read it over complacently 
to yourself, than to exceed the canonical 
length and to provoke the wonder ' when 
will it be done ? ' If I might suggest, I 
would say, ' Leave out as many of the argu- 
ments as you please. Probably nine men 

91 



OVERMUCH DISCOURSE 

out of ten would not be able to follow them, 
and the tenth man knew them all before 
ever you thought them out. 5 One of the 
greatest errors a preacher can commit is 
to treat his congregation as reasonable beings, 
— of course I only mean in the sense of being 
able to follow out a nice line of logical argu- 
ment. Let him take up a plain principle 
or a thought that will carry conviction with 
it, and illustrate that and drive it well home, 
but let him spare his logic. And of illustra- 
tions, leave in the simplest. Don't omit 
the waving corn or the mother ; but if you 
have lugged in Shakespeare or Pythagoras, 
or have fetched some neat and erudite refer- 
ences from profane history, cut them ruth- 
lessly out! On most of your hearers they 
would be lost, except perchance by some such 
happy misunderstanding as that which sent 
away some working men delighted with a 
learned lecture on Cerinthus and the Gnostics, 
saying exultingly, ' Eh, but yon's a reet un, 
didn't he pitch into them knobsticks.' 

But in long discourses there are various 
degrees of unbearableness. There are two 
kinds which are especially abhorrent to all 
right-minded congregations. The first of 

92 



1 



OVERMUCH DISCOURSE 

these is the sermon which continually holds 
out false expectations of coming to an end. 
You are told at the outset that the subject 
is to be considered under seven heads, and 
you exhort your soul to patience, and count 
the heads, not without satisfaction. But 
lo ! when the preacher has worked through 
c seventhly,' he begins another long division 
with the ominous announcement ' there is 
one thing which I wish to impress.' Then 
comes ' and now to conclude,' and when this 
conclusion is fairly worked out, you are again 
put off with ' a few words and I have done.' 
Now I must protest that this is unfair dealing, 
and it is apt to leave upon the mind a conscious- 
ness of having been ' done.' Give us as many 
heads as you please, only let us have some 
assurance that when they are cut off they are 
finished and done with, and that others will 
not re-appear, phoenix-like, from the ashes 
of those already consumed. 

The other kind which I wish to notice, is 
an excess that arises rather from a certain 
mental laxity, than, as in the previous case, 
from moral defects. Some preachers prepare 
a good and ample discourse, one which, should 
they give it as prepared would hold the 

93 



OVERMUCH DISCOURSE 

mind unchained for its moderate duration, 
and leave behind that most desirable longing 
for a little more. But, behold, the preacher 
every now and then leaves what he has 
prepared, and goes off at a tangent into 
subsidiary disquisitions of uncertain length. 
Now this is tantalising. By all means let 
preachers speak instead of reading ; or if 
they like, prepare a little, and leave room 
for following the free play of thought as 
the mind warms to its work. But what 
I object to is such wanderings when the 
beaten prepared track is long enough already. 
How often have I listened to such preachers, 
and wondered when they would get back to 
the right road again ; and been oppressed 
by the knowledge that they will omit nothing 
of that, whatever else they may add in. 

Deal gently with us, oh ye men of long 
discourse. Remember that you have us 
utterly in your power as we sit under you, 
and use your power tenderly and moderately, 
dealing out milk for babes and that in modest 
portions ; or if perchance a little strong 
meat sometimes, then cutting it up very 
small to suit delicate digestions not able 
to take much at once. 

94 



IX. 
A SHOCKING CASE OF ABDUCTION. 

They are in a sad way about their parson 
down at Screwby. I met old John Ormrod 
last week — he generally walks in on market 
days, from the old habit of it, though he's 
given up both the mill and the shop years 
ago — and he began at once, ' Now, Maister 
Eutychus, I'm boun' to tell yo' a bit o' my 
mind. We're nobbut a lot of poor folk at 
Screwby, but still we have our feelin's, and 
we think yo've all acted very mean to go 
and tak' our parson away from us.' 

But perhaps it would be better if I were 
to put the intelligent reader in possession 
of the facts of the case. Screwby is a little 
town about eight miles from our city, where 
we have a rather flourishing congregation, 
mostly of plain country folk and working 
people. I always like to go to Screwby at 
their charity sermons, for they are a very 

95 



A SHOCKING CASE OF ABDUCTION 

hearty people, with less stiffness among them 
than in many of our town congregations. 
How they do sing to be sure ; — good, old- 
fashioned tunes, with ' a bit of repeat ' in 
them, and six or eight musicians fiddling 
away with the severe gravity characteristic 
of men occupying a responsible position, 
and feeling that forty generations are looking 
down upon them from the gallery. Well, 
to Screwby, some four years ago, came a 
new minister, a young man of great promise. 
The people had been rather in an unsettled 
state for some years, but now they became 
thoroughly united, and the praises of Mr. 
Duke were in all the churches round. It was 
certainly quite delightful to hear them talk 
of ' our parson ' ; the congregation increased, 
and the school was crowded, and what with 
meetings for young men, and meetings for 
young women, and mutual improvement 
societies, and classes for grammar and 
astronomy, and I don't know what beside, — 
certainly things were going on very well 
indeed. But there was one hitch. The 
people at Screwby could sing, and they could 
teach ; and as for hospitality, why the 
minister might have lived at their houses 

96 



A SHOCKING CASE OF ABDUCTION 

if he had liked ; but when it came to giving 
money, their hearts failed them ! 

Now, Mr. Duke, with that singular fatality 
which often attends young ministers, had 
got married very soon after he left Newton 
Academy. A sweet, gentle creature his young 
wife was, and very pleased were the people 
when he took her home, and she took her part 
among them all so freely, especially making 
friends, and doing a great deal of good among 
the young women in the stocking factories. 
But by-and-by a baby came, and now they 
have two, and for the last two years poor Mr. 
Duke has found it hard work to carry on 
upon the hundred a year, which when he 
first went seemed a rather luxurious income. 
But the Screwby people never dreamed of 
increasing it. It is not that they are poor. 
They pass indeed for poor people, and live in 
a plain homely way, but there are some of 
them well known in the neighbourhood to 
be men of substantial property. Old John 
Ormrod, now ; he walks in eight miles to 
market and eight miles back, in an old grey 
coat and corduroy breeches, with a basket 
on his arm ; and he lives in the kitchen, 
except on grand occasions, when the parlour 

97 g 



A SHOCKING CASE OF ABDUCTION 

is opened and displays a dazzling sight of 
mahogany furniture, with antimacassars on 
everything from the sofa to the coal box ; 
but the house is a good square stone house, 
and it belongs to John, and so does the mill 
that he has let to the co-operatives, and the 
shop which he has given up to his daughter 
and her husband, and all that long row of 
cottages at goit-foot belongs to him ; and it 
is said that he has a deal of money out on 
mortgage, but John has always been very 
close about those things, so that no one 
can tell. But, however, John is not a poor 
man ; and there are two or three more of 
the same sort who smoke their pipes together 
now and then, and grumble about the income- 
tax most suspiciously, and who are well 
known to have c scraped a tidy bit of money 
together.' And very much interested they 
all are in chapel matters. John can start 
a hymn at the meetings with any of them, 
and old Isaac Bottomley has preached at 
a pinch ; and Joshua Bramble, c oud Joss,' 
as he is called by every man, woman, and 
child in Screwby, has been one of their best 
Sunday School teachers for forty years back. 
But their hearts fail them when it comes to 

98 



A SHOCKING CASE OF ABDUCTION 

giving. The sittings are a shilling or eighteen 
pence a quarter ; then they have a subscrip- 
tion in order to raise the minister's salary, 
there being only some twenty or thirty pounds 
endowment, and to this subscription John 
and Isaac and c oud Joss ' subscribe their 
two pounds apiece, and they do not do even 
this without a good deal of grumbling when 
any little extra subscription has to be made 
up. So poor Mr. Duke struggled on as well 
as he could, for he was rather a sensitive man 
and did not like to face the discontent which 
he well knew would arise if he asked them 
to raise anything more for him. 

Well ; a month or two ago, the chapel at 
Blackport became vacant, and as it happens 
that I am one of the trustees, I named Mr. 
Duke to the people as a likely man for a busy 
and increasing town ; and after various hear- 
ings and negotiations, in the course of which 
it came out that I was the prime mover in 
the matter, he was chosen at Blackport, 
with a salary half as large again as he had had 
at Screwby. 

It must not, however, be imagined that 
the Screwby people bore the change with 
equanimity. They were sincerely attached 

99 



A SHOCKING CASE OF ABDUCTION 

to their minister, and moreover, they were 
proud of him, and grievous was the outcry 
at what they considered a sort of felonious 
enticing away. In fact, they did everything 
they could, entreated, remonstrated — every- 
thing, except resolve to subscribe sufficient 
to make Mr. Duke's position comfortable ; 
and even if they had done this now, it is 
doubtful if he would have remained, as the 
field opened at Blackport was one really 
better suited to his powers. 

So it came to pass that the first time old 
John Ormrod met me in the market place he 
came up, and instead of a cordial shake of the 
hand, stumped down his thick stick upon the 
flags and said, ' Now, Maister Eutychus, we 
think yo've acted very mean to go and tak' 
away our parson ! ' 

c Well, John,' I said, ' What's to do ? I 
suppose Mr. Duke was free to please himself. 
We didn't make him leave you.' 

1 No, but you went an' 'ticed him, an' I 
don't reckon it wur right to throw tempta- 
tion in a young man's way, an' him gettin' 
on so well, an' so comfortable-like amang us.' 

6 Temptation ! Come, Mr. Ormrod, that's 
all nonsense. Why, now, look here ; if your 

IOO 



A SHOCKING CASE OF ABDUCTION 

Sam, who's manager at Cutts', is offered a 
much better place somewhere else, wouldn't 
you have him go ? ' 

1 Well, happen I would ; but we looken 
for a preacher to be better nor common 
folk, and to think about doin' good.' 

1 Very well, then you ought to do better 
by him. If you thought it would be wrong 
for him to consider the money, you ought 
to have considered it for him. You knew 
he must have hard work to make both ends 
meet, and you ought to have laid your heads 
together and made up something more for 
him, without waiting for him to be invited 
somewhere else* And as to our " enticing " 
him, what would you have had us do ? How 
is a minister ever to change unless either some- 
body asks him, or he offers himself : and I 
expect you would have thought it still worse 
if he had done that ! ' 

' But he wur doin' so much good at Screwby, 
we think he might have sacrificed something 
to stop with us.' 

' Well, then, you should have been willing 
to sacrifice something to keep him. If he 
was to stop with you, he would have had to 
sacrifice £50 a year, to say nothing of its 

IOI 



' WANTED IMMEDIATELY ' 

being a larger town and a more important 
position. Now do you think it reasonable 
that all the sacrifice should be on his side ? 
I think you all ought to have shared it, 
and not to have waited till you were forced, 
but to have done it as soon as ever you saw 
that he was doing his best among you, and 
that he really needed something more to keep 
him comfortably.' 

I saw old John was a little shaken by 
what I said, but I did not press him to say 
he had altered his opinion, for they are a 
very stiff sort, those Screwby folk, and I 
knew well enough he would never own 
to being in the wrong. But I could not 
help thinking, as I went on my way, that 
after all, we laymen are apt to give our par- 
sons rather hard measure ; for we are so 
ready with our charges of worldliness, that 
it is difficult for a minister to ' ask for more,' 
and yet we seldom think of giving it to him 
unless he does. And behold, when I got 
home the first thing that struck me was the 
following advertisement in a weekly paper: — 

4 Wanted, immediately, a single man, a member of the 

denomination, to supply a small congregation in a 

village, principally on the Lord's-day. A small salary would 
be given. If acquainted with the general shoe-making 
business, an opportunity now presents itself where a 
constant situation as a journeyman can be secured/ 

102 



X. 

UNSOCIAL WORSHIP. 

As a general rule, I think a man ought 
to hold with his minister ; but there are 
occasions on which it becomes necessary to 
form an individual opinion and to express it. 
I don't know how it is, but I think some 
ministers are so desperately spiritual that 
they cannot see common sense about what 
may be best for common ordinary people, 
and so they often, without intending it, 
strain after such very 7 lofty religious effects 
as, when attained, are only artificial, and do 
harm rather than good. Now, there was 
our parson, last Sunday week, preaching that 
people ought to be so intensely impressed 
by the religious spirit when they come to 
chapel^ that it should quite absorb all their 
thoughts, and that when the service is over 
they should all go silently home. He especi- 
ally condemned in rather bitter words — 



UNSOCIAL WORSHIP 

for he never half says a thing — all stopping 
to converse in the chapel porch, as showing a 
frivolous and irreverent spirit. This was 
coming pretty close home, for, to say the 

truth, our people at B are rather given 

to lingering about after service. On fine 
Sundays there is quite a busy scene. Some 
few of the great people walk soberly down to 
the gates, but I am inclined to think it is 
more from stateliness than religious feeling. 
All the younger people, however, and the 
Sunday School teachers, and those kind, busy, 
4 elect ' ladies, who are so useful in the 
congregation, get together, and there is much 
shaking of hands and general interchange 
of friendly communications. But on that 
Sunday everybody seemed as if they wished 
to stop and speak as usual, but did not like 
to begin ; a few exchanged whispers, and 
when two or three did get together in a corner, 
as usual, up came Mrs. Charles Spokes, who 
generally makes up for the forced silence 
of service time by gossipping for half a dozen 
afterwards, and said with a laugh, ' Now, 

remember what Mr. said, and don't 

talk ; you ought to be ashamed of yourselves, 
you giddy young things,' from which I 

104 



UNSOCIAL WORSHIP 

gathered that she had not herself been so 
seriously impressed as our parson would 
have desired. 

Now, I for one cannot agree with Mr. 

about this. I go with all he says about 
giving your whole mind to the service. I 
don't at all approve of the custom which 
prevails at one country chapel I know of, 
where all the gentlemen, having sent in 
their wives and families, get together in a 
corner before service and talk politics and 
trade, with a dash of the scandal of the 
neighbourhood, and do not go in till the 
opening hymn has come to the last verse. 
Nor would I palliate inattention during the 
hour of worship. I hate to see those Miss 
Sparrows in the pew before me, fidgetting 
about, looking everywhere except at the 
pulpit, settling and re-settling their fine 
new bonnets, and manifestly not thinking 
at all of what is going on. I can allow for an 
occasional nap, for I know that very good 
people are liable to that weakness of the 
flesh, indeed I am constitutionally so myself ; 
but deliberate inattention is inexcusable. 
When service is over, however, I think it 
is altogether different. After sitting confined 

105 



UNSOCIAL WORSHIP 

in our pews for an hour and a half, right 
among people whom we know, but with whom 
we have interchanged not a word nor a sign, 
it is quite unnatural to go away without a 
few friendly greetings. And of course if 
we speak at all, we cannot refrain from 
making some novel and interesting allusion 
to the weather, and that is equally sure to 
lead to a little friendly conversation. I think 
this gives in some measure the element of 
sociality that our worship wants. The sep- 
arate system, the worshipping in private 
boxes and reserved seats, destroys the feeling 
of sociality. You might sit next pew but 
one to a man for two years, till you knew 
every curl in the back of his head, and yet 
never speak to him, and be total strangers 
when you met, were it not for the opportunity 
which presents itself as you are going out, 
and when you feel naturally disposed for 
friendly greetings. This restores the balance, 
and you go home after five minutes so spent 
feeling that you have been meeting with 
friends, and with that wholesome glow of 
genial neighbourliness at your heart which, 
to my mind, is especially in harmony with 
the spirit of worship. For instead of this 

1 06 



UNSOCIAL WORSHIP 

being at variance with the natural religious 
spirit, and calculated to dissipate any impres- 
sion which may have been made upon the 
mind by the sermon, the hymns, or the 
prayers, I think it is quite the contrary. I 
know there are times when a death or some 
especially moving subject has given an un- 
usually solemn and impressive tone to the 
service, when we feel quite disinclined to 
talk, and only give each other quiet greetings 
or that silent grasp of the hand which speaks 
more than any words. But usually, when 
our worship has been of a wholesome, joyous, 
encouraging kind, as I think it mostly ought 
to be — I don't like your preachers who are 
always morbid and depressing — we naturally 
begin talking together afterwards, not be- 
cause the impressions of the time have passed 
from our minds, but because those very 
impressions include an element of mutual 
friendliness and neighbourly feeling, that 
prompts us to speak to one another. The 
poor feel this even more than the rich. 
I am sure little Biggs, the grocer, going home 
with his family to the small close parlour 
behind his shop, is happier all the week for 
a friendly shake of the hand, and a few words 

107 



UNSOCIAL WORSHIP 

from one or another of our well-to-do people. 
Looking at it from a high spiritual point of 
view, you may say it ought not to be so, 
and that Mr. Biggs ought to go silently and 
thoughtfully home ; but I think the worship 
does him all the more good, and is all the more 
liked by him because associated with a little 
intercourse of a more genial and less limited 
kind than he gets over the counter or among 
his own neighbours. 

And new-comers and strangers especially 
feel this. When I go to a congregation in 
a strange town, I always feel as if I should 
like to be spoken to, as if somehow it was not 
a natural thing to have gone in and wor- 
shipped with a number of people of my own 
faith, and to go away again without a word 
of greeting. So when I see a stranger in our 
chapel, I always feel a desire to speak to him, 
and to tell him how glad we are when any 
come among us ; and if I find he is one of 
our people from some distant town, I feel an 
almost irresistible impulse to ask him to 
dinner. I do not say that I always obey 
this impulse. Family men know that little 
domestic difficulties are apt to arise from the 
too frequent extension of such extempore 

1 08 



UNSOCIAL WORSHIP 

hospitalities. Mrs. Eutychus does not like 
strangers on a Sunday. But if I reluctantly 
obey the affectionate conjugal admonition 
which is conveyed by a slight pull at my coat, 
or a tender pinch of the arm, my feelings are 
nevertheless unchanged. 

Therefore I hold for a fair amount of 
conversation after chapel. Only let my plea 
be justified by its being general, and not mere 
gossipping in little cliques. Speak not merely 
to your personal friends ; speak also to the 
poor and to strangers. If you see a man 
coming Sunday after Sunday whom nobody 
seems to know, speak to him and bid him 
welcome ; depend upon it he will be more 
likely to come again, and will feel more 
interest in the worship than he did before. 



109 



XL 
4 PARSONIC ACID. 5 

And what is ' Parsonic Acid,' I dare say 
some readers, as yet only acquainted with 
the rudiments of chemistry, may ask. 

Was it in a dream, or did I really read in 
an old book the other day, this definition 
of it ? Anyhow, it will serve my turn. 
c Parsonic acid is a certain pungent kind of 
talk, which is usually emitted where parsons 
do much congregate together.' 

How I came to know anything about it 
happened thus. 

A few weeks ago I got a characteristic 
little note from my cousins at Wattleton- 
in-the-Marshes. As the reader is already 
acquainted with those two excellent relatives 
of mine, I trust I shall not be betraying 
confidence in transcribing their letter. It 
ran thus : — 

"Dear Cousin Eutychus. — I suppose you 

no 



' PARSONIC ACID ■ 

have heard that Mr. Delter, whom you saw 
when you were here last summer, accepted 
the unanimous invitation which was given 
to him, and has settled as our minister. 
He has been with us now about four months, 
and we are all very much delighted with him. 
You cannot think what nice sermons he 
gives us, so full of eloquence, pathos, and 
also of intellect ; in fact, we have had no 
one at all equal to him since poor old Dr. 
M. We had the Sewing Meeting last week, 
and everybody was talking about him. 
Indeed some of the young ladies are quite 
ridiculous in their enthusiasm, and sister 
Euphemia quite offended one of the Miss 
Draytons, who was talking about working 
him some markers for the pulpit Bible, 
by telling her she ' had much better hem 
him a set of shaving cloths ! ' But Euphe- 
mia is very sharp sometimes you know, 
and though we admire Mr. Delter very much, 
we do think it is a pity he should disfigure 
his face as he does. We hope dear Chloe 
and the children are all well, and with our 
united love, I remain your affectionate 
cousin, — Jane Blaise.' 

1 P.S. — I declare if I had not almost for- 

iii 



' PARSONIC ACID ' 

gotten to tell you that the special object of 
my writing is to ask you to come down for 
a few days next week. It is the ministers' 
meeting here, and, as Mr. Delter's lodgings 
are very confined, and the Draytons are 
away at the Exhibition, we have asked Mr. 
Delter to invite the ministers to dine at our 
house, and spend the afternoon together, 
according to their usual custom. Now we 
feel a delicacy about this, some of them being 
single gentlemen, and we are, therefore, 
wishful that you should come and act as 
host for us. The ministers' meeting is on 
Wednesday, and on the Thursday there is 
service at the chapel and a public collation 
at the Crown.' 

This was the letter, and of course Mrs. 
Eutychus and I had a little consultation 
as to whether I should go. I am sorry to 
say that dear Chloe did not encourage my 
going as much as I expected, saying that I 
was always going gadding about after parsons, 
and might almost as well be a parson 
myself. Of course this was her joke ; but 
however I thought I should be better for a 
few days' outing, as it had been balancing 
time at the Bank, and I had been rather over- 

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1 PARSONIC ACID ' 

worked. So at last I wrote to tell my cousins 
I would come, and on the following Tuesday 
night, after business hours, I went down 
by the express, reaching Wattleton about 
midnight. 

My cousins were too busy the next morning 
to devote much time to me, for it was indeed 
rather an anxious occasion for them. They 
had never entertained a party of ministers 
before ; but on various occasions several 
of the ministers who were coming had stayed 
at their house, and they told me, during 
breakfast, little anecdotes of the * fads ' 
and queer ways of some of them, especially 
of some of an ascetic and self-mortifying 
turn, whom they said they always found 
it most difficult to please. However all 
things have an end and so had their labours, 
and by three o'clock Mr. Delter had arrived 
to receive his friends, and the Misses Blaise 
were waiting to welcome them, with the 
terrible calmness of women who having done 
their best were now obliged to leave results 
to Providence and a not-altogether-reliable 
cook. 

I am not quite sure whether the ministers 
liked this vicarious hospitality on the part 

i*3 



' PARSONIC ACID ' 

of Mr. Delter. It seemed to me as if there 
were a little constraint upon them, especially 
while we were all waiting for dinner, which 
had to be put back a little on account of Mr. 
Orton, the minister of the Great Meeting, 
Docksley, who had never been known to 
be in time in his life. One or two of the 
younger men indeed, fresh from college, 
attempted a few jokes, but they fell very 
flat, and the only animation was on the part 
of the Rev. Peter Drinkwater, a gentleman 
with a mission, who was improving the 
opportunity by trying to interest the Misses 
Blaise in a movement for supplying the poor 
of a neighbouring town with cheap baby- 
linen, about which he had recently published 
a pamphlet. 

At last, however, old Mr. Orton arrived, 
and was proceeding to give a detailed account 
of the singular circumstances which had 
detained him, holding Miss Euphemia's hand 
all the while in an absent way, and shaking 
it from time to time to give emphasis to his 
narrative, when, to our great relief, dinner 
was announced. 

I am not going to describe the dinner. 
I will only say that under its genial influence 

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' PARSONIC ACID 

the hearts of the brethren seemed to open, 
and the previous constraint passed away. 
And no sooner was this the case, than the 
conversation began to take that peculiar 
character which suggested to me the subject 
of this paper. Somebody started the ques- 
tion of the Bi-centenary, and straightway all 
were engaged in elucidating the secret history 
of the failure of the great movement which 
had been attempted for commemorating 
the event at X. One told of the real reasons 
w T hich had caused Mr. Fiddle and the Rev. 
Mr. Faddle to break off from the movement, 
and the conduct of those two well-known 
gentlemen was warmly debated, till Mr. 
Drinkwater made a digression by repeating 
an authentic version of the conversation, 
in which Mr. Floater, the great city merchant, 
who had been expected to head the movement 
with a rattling subscription of at least a 
thousand pounds, had declined to give any- 
thing, and great horror was expressed by 
most of the ministers present at this atrocious 
obduracy on the part of Floater. This 
naturally led to a conversation on local diffi- 
culties of the same kind, and various heart- 
rending instances of the insensibility of the 

"5 



' PARSONIC ACID ' 

laity to the most noble opportunities of 
6 coming out ' were related. Indeed, as I 
listened, I could not but feel almost ashamed 
of belonging to a class which seemed, accord- 
ing to these accounts, so conspicuously to 
have failed in its duty, and it was rather 
a relief to me when a little nucleus of con- 
fidential chat at the other end of the table 
enlarged into a general conversation on the 
proceedings of a neighbouring minister who 
had recently been making himself, though 
in a very harmless way, rather ridiculous. 
And indeed if the brethren were not very 
sparing of the laity, certainly they were not 
much more tender to one another. Several 
racy anecdotes were related of the foibles 
and extravagances of well-known ministers. 
Mr. A.'s pride, Mr. B.'s awkwardness, the 
intolerable lengths to which Mr. C. carries 
his habit of smoking, Dr. D.'s latest grandilo- 
quism, and the shameful badness of Mr. 
E.'s hat, were all in turn illustrated in a 
graphic and pleasing style. I thought my 
cousins looked rather shocked at all this, 
but they took it in very good part, thinking 
that the ministers were deferring till the 
dinner was removed, and they should have 

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' PARSONIC ACID ' 

retired, the serious business for which, in 
the innocence of their hearts, they believed 
these meetings were held. Accordingly, they 
did not protract their stay, and withdrew 
with a graceful observation on the part of 
Cousin Euphemia, that she and her sister 
would no longer hinder the important business 
which she was sure they must have on hand. 
As a veracious historian, however, without 
wishing to betray any confidence that accrued 
to me as a simple layman who had tempor- 
arily fallen among parsons, I am bound to 
say that the chief difference which manifested 
itself after my cousins' withdrawal was a 
freer tone of mutual criticism and general 
comment, and a much more hearty devotion 
to the dessert, for which, while the ladies 
were at table, a general indifference had been 
shown, as of minds quite superior to such 
unconsidered trifles. This latter is indeed 
by no means a peculiarity of the cloth ; I 
have frequently noticed how laymen also, 
eminent and otherwise, who have passed by 
all the sweet things at first, as if they really 
could not bring their minds down to them, 
have, by-and-by, when left to themselves, 
taken to them in an absent sort of way, 

117 



1 PARSONIC ACID ' 

that has gradually led to surprising results. 
But I am chiefly concerned with the feast of 
reason, which I think on the whole did not 
improve in its character. There was, indeed, 
an endeavour on the part of one or two 
to transact a little business in which the 
common action of the ministers of the district 
was involved, but they were voted bores, 
and only drew down upon themselves the 
more unsparing witticisms of the rest. And, 
though I am an elderly man myself, truth 
obliges me to record that the older ministers 
were the worst ; they were the most utterly 
incorrigible jesters ; they told the most 
mischievous stories ; they seemed most like 
schoolboys let out of school. I was so well 
known to most of them that they did not 
look on me as an intruder, and I sat by 
listening, amused, and interested, if not much 
instructed. I confess that until that day 
I had no idea that ministers were so fond of 
gossip, though, truth to say, it was not ill- 
natured gossip. Nothing was spared that 
had any connection with ecclesiastical affairs. 
Mr. F.'s articles in the ' Rational ' ; the split 
in the congregation at Scrimmageham ; the 
eminent services rendered by Common-tator's 

us 



1 PARSONIC ACID ' 

Letters in the c Weekly Churchman,' were all 
canvassed with great candour. The actual 

facts about Mr. G.'s invitation to H ; 

why Mr. I, was coming home from the 
colonies, and the true character of his rather 
vague successes there ; the patriotic struggles 
in the churches of our sister country ; all 
the most recent ministerial changes ; the 
latest quotations in w T hat may be called 
ministerial prices ; all in turn came under 
notice, and some impressive utterances were 
given on the subject of the movement for 
increasing salaries — the great question of 
the day. Thus the afternoon passed plea- 
santly away till tea was announced, after 
which the guests present dispersed to the 
houses of members of the congregation with 
whom they were going to stay, to meet again 
for the graver engagements of the morrow. 
' Now, my dear Euphemia,' I said, as I 
sat late that evening with my cousins, who 
had been inveighing rather warmly against 
what they called the light and frivolous 
character of the meeting, and who had been 
evidently shocked by the bursts of laughter 
which they had heard proceeding from the 
dining-room during the afternoon— * now, 

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' PARSONIC ACID * 

my dear Euphemia, let us be just. These 
men are not really either light or frivolous. 
All this is but the natural unbending of 
lives which are for the most part busy and 
earnest, and filled with zealous and self- 
denying labours. You know how devoted 
old Mr. Orton was last winter when the 
cholera was at Docksley ; and Mr. Drink- 
water is quite wearing himself out by his 
labours amongst the poor ; and they were 
among the wildest this afternoon, I felt as 
you do for a little while ; but then I re- 
membered your father's anecdote of old Dr. 
M., whom you were all so fond of.' 

' What was that ? ' 

c Why, a prim young Evangelical was 
rather shocked at him one day for what 
he thought unbecoming levity, and said 
with great surprise — " Sir, are you a serious 
Christian ? " " No," was Dr. M.'s prompt 
reply, "No, sir, I am a jocose one." * 

• Well,' said my cousin, ' there's a good 
deal in that, but really I did not think minis- 
ters were so fond of gossip.' 

THE END. 



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